


you crawled out of the sea (straight into my arms)

by cosmicbodies



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anyways, F/M, Gen, Rating Likely to Change, and what about it? xx, ben wants to be cautious and respectful that's all, ben's solution for arising memories of past conflict is a v selective 'i pretend i do not see it', brief police mentions but nothing of substance, fair warning this WILL have a happy ending, i am serving you suzanne collins realness, i had a bunch of tags typed out and they all got erased rip, i just think the reylo bridal carry is something that can be so personal, mermaid rey, mermaids and shapeshifting, more tags to come: stay tuned, siren (the tv show) au, slow burn bc rey is mermaid and things are complicated, this is a Reylo Happy Endings Only zone!!, we all like to joke about her being feral so... here we go, yes it was ye olde infatuation at first sight, yes rey gets her name from a bread-related misunderstanding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24418510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicbodies/pseuds/cosmicbodies
Summary: Kef Bir Cove is a small and sleepy town with a strange history. Myths of mermaids run deep, but for most of the town, the stories exist merely as folklore maintained for tourist appeal. Ben Solo had a lot of reasons for returning to Kef Bir (the appeal of a quiet town, the newly opened managerial position at the local marine biology institutional outpost, and a willingness to finally deal with his familial demons), but the potential existence of merpeople wasn’t one of them. Quite frankly, Ben Solo couldn’t give less of a damn about silly stories that told of creatures that were half-people, half-fish. At least not until one washes herself ashore and inexplicably decides that Ben’s houseboat is her new home.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 40
Kudos: 69





	1. beginning

**Author's Note:**

> friend, reylos, countrymen, thank you for lending me your ears! happy mermay. here is my contribution, i guess. one of my quarantine binges has been the freeform show siren. one of the main characters on that show is named ben so... in all honesty this was probably inevitable. although this fic is very much inspired by concepts and premises of the show, it deviates QUITE a bit from it -- so, if you're worried about spoilers, have no fear! i originally planned on this being relatively short but it sort of took on a life of its own (and lots of probably unnecessary plot) so chapter count will remain TBD. i've really enjoyed writing this so far and i hope you enjoy reading it, too.

When she finally manages to fully drag her body out of the water, she is immediately filled with the sensation of  _ burning _ . 

She has only ever experienced a feeling like this once before, years ago. There had been some kind of issue with a vessel of the ones on land. A loud, terrible noise, one that had echoed through the waters and drawn her to the source of it (foolish, dangerous, naive, she’d been.) Though the expanse above the water was inky black, everything around -- on the water, in the water -- had been so suddenly, strangely bright. The water was  _ hot,  _ far warmer than it ever had been. The currents were all wrong and she was still small, not as good with her swimming as she would be, and she’d been swept up into the midst of everything before she’d even realized it. Her skin felt wrong and her chest heaved, empty, struggling, and all of it had been  _ wrong _ . It was not something she was meant to experience, not naturally, and she realized that as the world around her glowed with the color of sea stars and octopi. 

When she had breached the surface out of desperation, she was met with  _ pain _ ; waves of light licked at her flesh as she exposed it to the air and did strange things to her skin. She was a creature of the water, born of it, connected to it, and yet she had begun to sink with the debris and the chaos that surrounded her. All she felt after that was the strength of one of her own -- a hunter, a protector -- as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her away. Over his shoulder her eyes had followed the bodies of two of the ones from land as they sunk down, unmoving, into the limitless abyss below. And she had known they were not meant to be there, either. The water was not their home in life, but it would be home to their bones. As the hunter had brought her back to the tribe’s cave, and the current grew cold and clear again and her mind with it, she had wondered if they would join the spirits anyways.

_ Burning,  _ a woman from her colony had told her as she tended to her wounds later.  _ That is what you felt, what you saw. Burning. Fire. _

Now, she finds herself burning again. Where the shallow tide no longer laps at her skin, it is replaced by flames with no form, a fire she cannot see. It steals the air from her chest and she claws blindly at the sand around her as it fills her. Then a new pain comes. It is a deep, searing pain unlike  _ anything  _ she has ever felt. It is not like the fire; it is so much more than every wound she has ever had, be it from sparring or beasts. She has heard stories of what the transformation is like, passed down from those few who are brave or foolish enough to try it. But no words could have prepared her for the agony of land. Her body is wracked with it. 

Even through the daze of her pain, she is surprised by the shrieking sounds that leave her own mouth. In the water, vocalizations carry in a different way. They travel to others through echoes that fill the water, rippling with the waves and resonating in bones. On land, though, sound seems  _ solid _ ; even her own noises are foreign and sharp in her ears. She can both feel and hear the sickening cracks of her bone as her body twists and contorts. Her teeth grind, her chest spasms, and then,  _ finally,  _ the pain begins to ebb away. The unseen flames in her body slowly dissipate and she feels the strength enough to flip onto her back in the wet sand. She notices the way that she lies flat on the ground, the spiny protrusions that usually line the length of her body seemingly disappeared. 

Unclouded by pain, her mind begins to register the many other sensations she is experiencing. Although her hair still drips with sea, she’s overwhelmed by dryness -- in her skin, in her eyes, in this new world surrounding her. Even though the burn inside of it has mostly faded away, her torso still heaves with the effort of adjustment, filling with the dryness around her. And in the lower half of her body… this is what she knew would happen, but that still does not make the sensation any easier to comprehend. The solid singularity of her tail has been divided into two limbs. Smooth skin covers them and extends up her torso as well, her entire body; her silvery scales lay in the sand beneath her, glinting dimly in the weak light of early day. Surrounding her strange new lower extremities are the remnants of her tail and it is a jarring thing to see -- swaths of her own flesh, silver and blue and rapidly darkening red, sloughed off into one mostly perfect piece. She navigates her body away from the mess, not wanting to dwell in it for too long. She’s not sure what might happen if she did. She’s not sure about any of this. Her eyes trace the lines of the fin that was just hers. She reaches out to touch it, a curious creature by nature, compelled by the separation of this part of her. But at her gentle touch the entire thing disintegrates, turning fine and disappearing into the sand around it. 

Something in her aches at the sight, but she steels herself. She has done all of this for a reason and she must not forget it. Even if she cannot swim, she must still move forward. She drags herself to stand with newfound limbs and her body moves with a sense of freedom it has never known. 

* * *

Small and sleepy as it is, Kef Bir Cove is hardly an ordinary town. Ordinary, of course, was about as subjective a word as they come, but Kef Bir most certainly did not qualify. 

Ben Solo knows this. He takes it in stride. Sometimes, he even enjoys it. But other times, the strangeness of his hometown is a nuisance. Like right now, for example, because he is currently fifteen minutes late for work and stuck in traffic because there is a  _ mermaid parade float _ stuck in the road — courtesy of this year’s annual Mermaid Festival Celebrations. 

Sure, punctuality isn’t necessarily a  _ huge  _ deal at the Marine Research Center. Plus, he’s technically the “boss” which probably means he could come in late if he really wanted to. But he’s still relatively new to the job, only a few months in, and he’s determined to prove himself more than worthy for the position he’d been lucky enough to earn. Still, he can’t help but glare with some contempt at the overlarge, cartoonish creation of paper mache that looms a few cars ahead of him. 

Kef Bir Cove had proudly declared itself the “Mermaid Capital of the World” decades ago. Legends of mermaids had always swirled in the Cove; seeing an opportunity to be seized and economic benefits of tourism to be reaped, town officials had jumped at the chance and the annual Mermaid Festival had been born. Ben had actually enjoyed the festivities as a child. Fascinated by anything that had to do with the ocean, for years he had insisted on going to any part of the celebration that he could. (Although it was usually old Maz or his Uncle Luke who were the ones dragged along as chaperones, his own parents both too busy coordinating parts of the event or off on business to go with him themselves.) And these were some of the fondest memories he had of his childhood: twinkling lights overhead as he strolled through the promenade downtown; his hands sticky with the sugar of cotton candy and ice cream as other children giggled and tugged him through a funhouse maze; being surrounded by depictions of beautiful women with scaled tails that enamored and intimidated him in equal measure. 

But as he’d gotten older, things changed.  _ Ben  _ changed. Ben turned away from the world and into himself, constructing a world of his own that he decided would be ruled by science and logic. And mermaid festivals had no place in that world. It didn’t help that his keen and growing mind noticed more and more, like the way the absence of his parents stung and how his peers tucked to whisper about him behind the hands that had once been outstretched to him. 

Truth be told, as much of a tourist trap as the town is, and despite the amount of less than sweet memories Ben has here, part of him is genuinely glad to be back. He had always been the type who just  _ needed  _ to be by the ocean. And there was plenty of ocean nearby in Bellingham when he’d been in school and working there. But there was something specifically about being near the water  _ here,  _ at home, that truly comforted him. And it wasn’t any specific aspect about the town. It was everything -- the fog that rolled over the deep navy of the water every morning, the mist that carried itself over the sloping, forested mountains, the atmosphere that was always crisp with salt and cool Pacific air no matter the time of year. Ben likes to travel, and he’s done a fair bit of it, too. And he certainly isn’t the type to romanticize his hometown. Kef Bir is far from perfect -- Ben would probably be the first to admit that. But, still. No matter how far he goes, no matter how happy ( _ his definition of happy) _ Ben finds himself in other places, always he is drawn back to the place he was born. It isn’t something he could ever really explain if he tried, and he isn’t sure if he’d even want to admit to it out loud. Still, it was undeniable, the pull that Kef Bir Cove has on him in some deep, primal way. 

And it’s enough to remind Ben to overlook any weird animosity he’s feeling towards the heinously crafted hybrid on wheels ahead of him.  _ Let it roll off of you, like water off a seal’s back.  _ He needs to be productive today, just like any other work day, and he won’t be much good at that if he’s already fixating on old memories before 9 a.m. So he rolls his shoulders and reaches to turn up the volume on his car’s stereo, letting himself get lost in the inane chatter of two radio hosts as he waits for traffic to clear.

////

“No, Rose. It definitely wasn’t a seal. I work with them all day. I  _ know  _ what their vocalizations sound like,” Finn is saying when Ben makes his way into the main work area of the research building. Finn and Rose are prepping ‘breakfast’ for the seals, the entire room filled with the pungent scent of raw fish. Strong as it is, Ben can’t remember a time when the smell still bothered him. 

“Then what could it have been, Finn? You said yourself you didn’t see anyone on the beach,” Rose replies in between blender pulses, doubt obvious in her tone although her face is neutral. “Plus, who would’ve been out that early,  _ screaming _ ?”

“Did something happen?” Ben asks as he sets down his keys and coat. Finn and Rose both turn to him, as if they’ve only just now noticed that he came in.

“We could ask you the same. Since when are you late to work, bossman?” Finn accuses, but his tone and the quirk on his lips are playful. It’s nice, in a weird way. Ben hasn’t had very many people in his life who have felt comfortable enough to tease him. It’s something that would’ve irritated him, would’ve set him on edge and readied his defenses. But Ben knows Finn means well, he only  _ ever  _ means well. So he allows himself to smirk back.

“Ha ha, very funny. You know I’m not your boss.”

“Actually, you are,” Rose replies, tossing handfuls of herring into a bucket. “You’re literally the director of operations. It’s not a bad thing, being the boss, Ben. Not like we’re gonna actually gonna respect you anyway.”

Ben actually laughs at that. “Fair enough. What were you guys talking about though, about seal vocalizations? Do we need to take the boat out?”

Rose puts a fish gut-covered hand on her hip and Ben is absently glad that she’s got her rubber apron on. Not that any of them aren’t used to being covered in all sorts of ocean grime. “Finn says he and Poe heard some weird sounds down by the beach by their house earlier this morning.”

Finn looks at her with exasperation. “They weren’t just  _ weird sounds _ , Rose. They were screams! Like.. human screams. But also not. I don’t know. I haven’t heard sounds like that ever before. It sounded...painful.” Rose may seem doubtful, but the look in Finn’s eyes gives Ben pause. He learned at a very young age that you can read a lot of truth in people’s eyes.

“That sounds strange. Did you call anyone?” Ben asks as he settles down at his makeshift desk, turning on the ancient desktop computer and willing it to life. He does most of his work on his own laptop but they still have to keep some data logged into this specific system. Ben is the only one ever willing to put up with the technological relic, and the seals’ migrational routes weren’t just going to log themselves, unfortunately.

“Well, me and Poe went down to the beach and tried to check things out and we didn’t see anything,” Finn explains, holding the door open for Rose as she heads out to feed the seals. “No tracks or drag patterns in the sand or anything. But Poe wanted to call the cops just in case. So Phasma came down, but she didn’t see anything either.” Phasma, the town’s chief of police, is a direct, no-nonsense woman. Clearly Finn and Poe had heard  _ something  _ If she’d thought the call warranted any looking into.

“Hm. Well, we can try to keep an eye on the cove in that area for a while. Make sure there aren’t any injured animals or anything.”

Finn beams at him. “Okay, cool. Thanks boss.”

“Don’t call me boss,” Ben calls out as Finn steps out to join Rose.The back door swings closed with a loud  _ click  _ and Ben stands up to head for the coffee maker in the building’s small kitchenette. He’s definitely going to need more caffeine before he can even think about doing data entry.

////

The rest of the day passes by in an easy, relatively uneventful manner. Ben logs about half of the last few weeks’ worth of migrational data before his brain starts to feel like it’s been put through a blender, and he decides to go out for a patrol run of the bay. It isn’t really necessary, but all of the staff is prone to doing patrols of the water anyways. They rely a lot on reports and calls, but not even fishermen can be expected to notice everything and preventative measures go a long way. It’s also just a good excuse to get out on the water and have a bit of peace of mind, an opportunity Ben is always willing to take. 

The time out on the boat helps settle his wandering thoughts. Although Ben’s only had this job for a few months, the gentle rock of the waves and monotony of his patrol routine have quickly become a comforting thing. By the time he gets back to the Center he feels focused again, despite the fact that it’s nearly dark already. Finn has already gone home and Rose is gathering her things when Ben makes his way inside.

“Anything happen while I was out?” Ben asks the petite woman, resting his jacket on the hook again and carding his fingers through his dark, long hair. Salt from the sea spray has settled in it, the texture of it strange but familiar on his fingertips. 

“Hm. One of the seals caught Finn off guard coming in and he almost fell into the water. Regretfully, the moment was not captured on camera,” Rose replies, a mischievous grin brightening her kind, round face. 

Ben smiles in turn as he settles in in front of the desktop once more, opening the spreadsheet he’d been working on earlier. “Not going home yet?” Rose questions as she shoulders on her jacket (the same one she always wears -- worn canvas covered in a myriad of patches and buttons.) 

Ben shakes his head, his eyes focusing on the screen in front of him. “Not yet. Gonna try to finish getting this stuff into the system.”

“Dunno why you let us get away with not doing that stuff but I’m grateful for it everyday,” Rose laughs. “Don’t stay too late, though, Ben. There’ll be plenty of other time to get this stuff done.”

Ben hums noncommittally, although a soft, secret spot of him is touched by Rose’s concern. He’s still adjusting to having  _ nice  _ coworkers who aren’t constantly trying to further their own careers at his own expense or gossiping behind his back. He really is lucky. He and Rose exchange goodbyes and then Ben is alone, only the hum of the struggling desktop and sounds of the shallow waves outside to keep him company. Without any forms of distraction, though, he manages to finish logging the data in record time. By eight o’clock he’s closing up for the night; he does one last preliminary check on the seals’ enclosure area and around the office, then steps out into the dark of night to make his way home.

//// 

Ben is a few yards away from his front doors when he senses that something is off. A few of the little trinkets he had on his front porch area are disturbed. The sliding glass door on the side of the houseboat is open, the gauzy curtains from inside swaying slightly in the evening breeze.  _ Did he leave it open that morning?  _

With a terrible, sinking feeling in his gut, Ben realizes,  _ yes _ , he probably did. He’d only come outside to stand for a few minutes with his first cup of coffee. It was a little morning ritual of his that he liked to indulge in. (There are so few indulgences that Ben that allows himself in life. He’s not sure when that started -- maybe he’s always been this way.  _ Ben, you have to allow yourself to be happy _ , his mother had finally said to him a few years ago.) But this morning, he failed to realize how close he was to running late; when he’d realized the time, and remembered that traffic would likely be bad due to the impending parade (which he was correct about), he’d made a mad dash out of the door. And apparently left one of the side doors wide open. 

Usually, Ben wouldn’t be too worried about the situation. Kef Bir is hardly an area with a high rate of crime, and the little dock of a neighborhood where his houseboat sits is especially quiet. Break-ins aren’t really much to be concerned about. The problem is Ninny -- Ben’s cat. He’d never admit it to anyone, but Ninny was Ben’s  _ world.  _ When she had shown up on the porch of his condo in Bellingham two years before, Ben was definitely not looking for a pet. In fact, he wasn’t very open to the idea of sharing his life with anyone or anything, let alone a scraggly little inky black kitten. But Ninny had refused to leave, and that was that. Now, she is essentially the only living creature that he openly shows affection towards and they’re both content with that. At least Ben had  _ thought  _ so. Ninny seemed to have other ideas, because she’d recently picked up a bad habit of trying to run outside constantly. Ben had been trying his best to figure out the cause of her newly developed caginess, because he knew that keeping Ninny locked up constantly wasn’t a viable solution. But his constantly being on edge and anxious about her escaping wasn’t feasible in the long run, either.  _ Oh, the joys of cat ownership. _

Thus, the sight of the easy exit he’d unknowingly supplied and evidence of movement on his porch has Ben’s heart suddenly plummeting into his stomach. His greatest worry seems to have been realized. (Well, maybe not his  _ greatest _ worry, in the grand scheme of things, but it was pretty high up on the list.) Although he knows Ninny is more than capable of fending for herself, the maze of water-surrounded dock around them wasn’t really the ideal location for a cat to get lost. Ben hurries in through the open door (ducking so as to not hit his head on the too-short frame), then slides it closed behind him and pushes the long curtains out of his face as he makes his way inside. He hears scuffling noises a short distance away and he feels certain that he’s caught Ninny in the act. As he fumbles to find the nearest light switch in the dim lighting, Ben decides she’s not getting treats for a month. Or a week, at least. He’s not a  _ total  _ monster. 

When Ben flips on the light switch and does a quick scan of the house’s lower level, Ninny is nowhere to be seen. However, there are  _ other _ things to be seen. Quite a bit of other things. In fact, Ben is suddenly wondering if his nerves and general exhaustion are catching up to him and he’s just flat out  _ seeing things.  _ Because only a few feet away from him there is a strange woman standing in his kitchen, naked as a jaybird, her hand plunged into his only box of cereal and her lips curled into a snarl at him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohoho, there she is, our darling goblin of the sea. whatever will she do next? i had a bunch of stuff typed out for my notes and it sounded really good and AO3 deleted it so now you all have this, i'm sorry. thank you to everyone who takes a chance on this and gives it a read. feedback and constructive criticism are warmly welcomed! i honestly feel like this piece is all over the place, especially the tenses (past and present). if that's the case, if you would like to and have the time i would greatly appreciate some feedback on it. comments of ANY kind mean the world, tbh. wherever you are in the world, i hope you are doing well and taking care of yourself during this strange time. you can find me on twitter @reyleaux if that's your jam ╰(*°▽°*)╯


	2. the depth of your stare anchors me here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> various introductions are made, some with the help of bread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to anyone reading — sorry this took me a while to get it up and posted! this chapter is quite a bit longer, hopefully that will sort of make up for the wait. life has been particularly crazy on all fronts this past month or so, hasn't it? i hope you all are doing well and holding up okay. on a less serious note, i also went through several different iterations for this chapter. i’m not perfectly content with this end product but, oh well. i hope you all find the one i’ve settled on to be enjoyable! <3

Truthfully, the woman in his kitchen is a sight to behold, and Ben is trying to do everything but. 

Her chestnut hair falls in waves nearly to her waist, but it only does so much to protect her...  _ modesty _ . Ben is hardly a prude, but he also was raised in a manner that prevents him from feeling comfortable with openly ogling a naked woman who hasn’t somehow consented to his gaze. Ben swallows the uncertainty that rises in his throat. Naked or not, she is,  _ technically,  _ committing home invasion. 

The longer he keeps his gaze on the woman, trying to maintain eye contact but still take in details, the more Ben notices. And it’s all…  _ odd.  _ Her breathing is labored -- he can hear it even as far away as he is. She sounds the way Ben would when he used to have asthma attacks. There is a coat of grime and sand all over her fair, golden skin. She holds her legs in a strange, slightly bowed position, as if uneasy on her feet. Ben thinks of the newborn fawns he’s seen in the woods before; wide-eyed and russet-furred, balanced on wobbling legs. Perhaps against his better judgement, something in him softens.

“Er, hello? Are you okay? Do you need help?” Ben asks, keeping his voice calm and level. She doesn't reply. In fact, there is no visible indication of understanding on the woman’s face. (From the slight tilt of her head, he thinks she’s at least registering the  _ sound  _ of his words.) Instead, she only makes an exaggerated sniff, as if sampling some unknown scent that’s wafted to her in the air. 

_ Odd. _

Despite the fact that she has entered his home without invitation, unclothed and dirt-covered, Ben doesn’t sense her as posing any  _ real _ threat. With his hands still raised, he takes a cautious step forward. The woman does not seem to appreciate the gesture. She carelessly drops the box of cereal she’d been clutching. Pieces of granola scatter across the floor. A guttural hiss leaves her mouth, unlike any sound Ben has ever heard a human make before, and she makes to move towards him. It seems Ben was right about her being unsteady on her feet, though; at the attempted movement, the woman’s legs wobble and give out beneath her, sending her tumbling to the ground.

The next few moments seem to play out in a blur. Acting on instinct, Ben rushes to help the woman, but she doesn’t miss a beat. In one fluid motion, the blink of an eye, she turns with a defensive snarl and slams Ben to the ground.  _ Hard _ . Much harder than a woman of her size and build should logically be able to, but his brain only barely registers that thought as it reels to catch up with everything happening. Because the woman is on top of him now ( _ and still naked), _ pinning him to his own kitchen floor between two lithe arms. He both feels and hears the  _ thud  _ of his head as it makes contact with the kitchen floor, spare bits of granola crunched beneath him. Now it is Ben’s chest that rasps with some effort as he struggles to regain the breath that was knocked out of him. She tracks the motion of it, and then the movement his throat makes as she leans in closer to him and he gulps. She makes an exaggerated movement in her own throat, and Ben realizes that she’s…  _ mirroring  _ him. As if unsure how to proceed in her own body. He can feel the warmth of the woman’s breath as it fans across his face; sense the smell of it, like the smell of the ocean — brine and sealife, a little unusual but somehow not unpleasant. She is so,  _ so _ close to him. 

Ben’s breathing is only shallow because he’s still regaining it -- that’s the  _ only  _ reason. 

Her unnatural eyes are rapt and alert, liquid hazel-gold irises and wide pupils darting across his face, mere inches away from her own. He truly has never seen anything like them before. The bronze and hazel flecks in them are piercingly vivid, almost otherworldly, even shrouded as they are in the dim light. If it weren’t for the bizarre urgency of the current predicament, he thinks he could maybe lose himself in the sight of them. But Ben can also properly see the wildness in her eyes from here. There isn’t any better word to describe it, really. She looks positively  _ feral.  _ No mere woman, but a wild thing.

And despite his better judgement, Ben doesn’t feel fear because of it. 

Instead, he flashes his own hands to grasp firmly around the woman’s forearms. With more strength than he would’ve anticipated needing, Ben manages to flip her over onto her own back, reversing their positions. He seems to have succeeded in catching her off guard; the look of surprise is clear on her face and it takes her over a full second to react this time. She thrashes against him, inhuman snarling noises coming out of her throat in earnest now. Ben tries his best to subdue her while still putting as much distance between their bodies as he can. 

He notices from this new position just  _ how  _ dirty the woman is. The cuticles surrounding her nails are packed with some sort of greenish grime, almost like algae. The smudges of sandy dirt covering her entire body are concentrated in strange places, painted fingerprints on the length of her neck, the spread of her ribs. And there isn’t just dirt, either. Patches of dry, crusted skin line the underside of her arms and the edges of her waist. The struggle seems to have made her wheeze even worse -- every few breaths, she lapses into a moment of ragged gasps. Genuine concern begins to gnaw at the interior of Ben’s chest. Something is very clearly wrong here. He begins to think that, maybe, she came into his home out of desperation or pure confusion.

“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you. I promise,” Ben rumbles, acutely aware of the compromising position they’ve found themselves in. “Please, just…calm down and I’ll let you go. I just don’t want you to hurt either of us.”

Ben isn’t entirely confident that the woman even understands English, so he tries his best to convey his meaning in the expression of his eyes. He’s not really sure if that’s even a thing that can be done. But it seems to work. After a few more moments, the woman ceases her wild thrashing and huffs a breath out of her nostrils in what feels like a universal expression of resignation. The look in her eyes seems…  _ slightly _ more calm, so (with some minor feelings of trepidation) Ben releases the woman from his grip. The two of them skitter to opposite sides of the kitchen floor in near-perfect tandem, both exchanging weary glances as their chests heave.

Once again, Ben becomes acutely aware of the fact that the woman is still very much entirely nude. He feels the tips of his ears flush despite himself, despite the  _ situation,  _ like he’s an awkward fourteen-year-old again. She doesn’t seem to be feeling any discomfort about her own state of undress, but… still. It doesn’t seem right. Ben shrugs off his jacket and decides to sacrifice the second layer beneath it as a sort of peace offering. He pulls off his hoodie with slow, deliberate movements, distinctly aware of the woman’s sharp gaze on him as he does it, then slides the garment across the linoleum flooring towards her. 

“You can put that on,” he explains, his tone gentle. The woman looks at the hoodie, then glances at him, confusion intermingling with caution in her expression. 

Ben sighs. He's not really sure how to proceed. It definitely doesn’t seem appropriate for him to help this naked stranger woman put on some clothing. But he’s also fairly certain that allowing this woman, who may or may not have her wits entirely about her, to continue lurking around his home in the nude is not appropriate either. He needs a woman to help him. But who — his mother? Absolutely not. Maybe Rose. They’ve hung out after work a few times, and she’s the type of person who always makes herself available to help. But they’re not really  _ that  _ close, and he’s also pretty sure that a boss asking his employee to please come help him clothe the naked lady in his house is some kind of HR disaster waiting to happen. So he’s left with one option: Maz. 

Ben sighs. He rests the back of his head against the cabinet behind him. He scrubs a hand over his face and pinches the bridge of his nose and very briefly ponders his life. What sort of strange act could he have possibly committed in order to karmically warrant this bizarre and uncomfortable situation?

With a sense of resignation, he wrangles his cell phone out of the back pocket of his jeans and thumbs through the screen until he arrives at Maz Kanata’s number in his contact list. 

//////// 

“Hey, Maz. It’s Ben,” he greets when the phone is picked up after three rings. “Okay, hear me out—“ 

“You’ve just called me on the telephone, Benjamin,” Maz interjects dryly. Her familiar, vaguely-accented voice sounds slightly distant on the other side of the line. Ben wonders if she’s accidentally put him on speaker again. “What else am I supposed to do but hear you out?” 

“Well, uh. Fair enough. Would you mind coming over? I’ve got a… situation.”

“What kind of situation?”

Ben contemplates for a moment, trying to decide how to best articulate his current predicament. Despite this effort, all that comes out is a rush of words. “There’s a woman in my house and I have no idea who she is and she’s completely naked and refusing to put clothes on.” 

There is a beat of silence on Maz’s end. “Ben, I’m failing to see how that’s a problem for you.” 

“Ha ha, very funny, Maz. Seriously.”

“How did this woman even come to be in your house?”

“I accidentally left the patio doors open this morning and I guess she just… waltzed in. She’s acting weird, Maz,” Ben lowers his voice slightly, although he’s almost certain at this point that the strange woman can’t even understand anything he may be saying about her. “Not really like she’s on drugs or anything, more like…  _ feral.  _ I don’t know.” He scrubs a hand over his face again. 

“I’ve heard about people like that before. Children raised by stray dogs and things like that. Have you got a wild dog woman in the house?” 

“Yeah, maybe.” He’s not entirely sure if she’s being sarcastic or not, but he’s too preoccupied to really care. “Will you just… please come over, if you don’t mind? You know I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t seem important,” Ben pleads, his voice still quiet. An unspoken thing passes between him and Maz -- because she  _ does  _ know. Maz Kanata may know Ben Solo better than just about anyone else, truthfully. And she knows quite well just how much he hates asking for help. She knows it’s because he hates making himself vulnerable to disappointment and seeming weak. Not that she’d ever say that to him out loud. 

The unspoken thing passes by in a beat of silence, and then Maz replies. “I’ll be over in just a few.”

The line goes silent. Ben lowers his phone to rest it on his thigh and returns his full attention to the women across from him. Well, perhaps  _ reciprocating  _ full attention is a more accurate phrase. For the entire duration of his conversation with Maz, the woman has been watching him with an almost startling degree of intensity. Each movement he makes is followed closely by the rapid, golden flicker of her eyes. It feels almost as if she’s drinking in his every move, making rapt observations and filing them away into some part of her mind. It's not a sensation that Ben is at  _ all _ used to. In fact, he’s spent a good part of his life trying to avoid attention, to dart through existence without anyone’s judging eyes cast upon him. 

But her gaze upon him does not feel like judgement. It does not creep up his spine and slowly strangle his chest and redden his vision with the anger of uncertainty. It feels like… curiosity. Observation carried out with no malicious intent, only the sincerity of someone eager to learn. Maybe he’s just speculating, or projecting in some roundabout way. But the weight of her golden gaze makes Ben (Ben, with a height and shoulder breadth better suited for a linebacker than a marine biologist) feel small in a way he hasn’t ever before. 

Ben is broken out of his train of thought by the sound of a light, rapping knock at the front door. He realizes minutes must have somehow passed, already. “Ben?” Maz’s voice is muffled slightly by the solid oak. 

“Go ahead and let yourself in, Maz. You’ll have to use your key, it’s still locked,” Ben calls back, keeping his eyes on the stranger across from him. “We’re in the kitchen.”

There is a scraping sound as the door is unlocked and opened, then soft footfalls as his tiny neighbor makes her way to the kitchen. Ben glances over at her from the position he’s still seated in. He watches as the woman does a nearly-comical double take, her eyes widening to become even more magnified by the thick glasses she wears. Ben can only assume she’s as shocked by the sight of a naked stranger in his home as he was. But when Maz casts her gaze away from the woman and onto Ben, the look in her eyes is… peculiar. There’s a heaviness to it that prickles a sense of unease in the underbelly of Ben’s mind. Instincts born out of anxiety make him want to ask her,  _ What? What is it? What’s wrong?  _ But he knows that this isn’t the place or time. 

Instead, he fills the space of unease in the air with words, hoping for a distraction. “It’s kind of funny, when I got home and saw that I’d left the doors open my first concern was…  _ shit.  _ Ninny.” Now he  _ is  _ properly distracted. Ben’s mind completely derails from the train of thought it had been in. He scrambles to his feet, mentally berating himself for forgetting about his cat up until this point. 

The stranger does  _ not  _ appreciate the sudden movement. She attempts to push herself further back into the corner of lower cabinets that she’s already wedged into, another guttural hiss coming from between the teeth she’s bared pointedly towards Ben. He automatically raises his hands once again in a gesture of pacifism, but his mind marvels at the primality of her reaction. Bared teeth -- a universal sign of aggression and fear in almost all non-human species, one that Ben has come to know all too well in his years of work. A flash of fangs to indicate the feeling of being cornered, trapped, and none too happy about it. 

Christ. Maybe he  _ does  _ have a wild dog-raised woman in his house.  _ Are there even any wild dogs around here, though? _

Out of the corner of his vision, Ben can see as Maz begins to approach the woman. Her movements are slow and deliberate, but Ben still feels his pulse quicken. Maz is four feet of pure spit and vinegar and more than willing to take care of herself, he knows this. But she’s also  _ tiny,  _ and God only knows how old, and the stranger woman has an unnatural strength to her that even Ben had some difficulty containing. He braces himself to tackle the wild woman again to protect Maz from her. 

However, the woman doesn't move to lunge at or otherwise attack Maz. She bares her teeth, but the sound she makes isn’t a hiss or growl. In fact, if Ben had to compare it to anything, he would swear it sounded almost like a chuff. (Tigers are far from Ben’s area of expertise, but he thinks he can vaguely remember something about chuffing as a non-threatening vocalization. He assumes it’s a good sign.)

“She… she doesn’t feel threatened by you,” Ben observes aloud as he watches the interaction between the two women, mildly dumbstruck. 

Maz glances at Ben from the kneeled position she’s taken up a few feet in front of the woman. There is a slight smirk on her thin mouth. “Do I look like much of a threat to you, Ben?”

It’s a fair enough point. Ben knows he cuts an…  _ imposing  _ figure, at least at first glance. He chalks it up to his size and the ‘resting bitch face’ that he has, as Poe Dameron once informed him. Hell, he’s used it to his own advantage rather to avoid the awkwardness of unnecessary small talk and similar things. Not infrequently, either. Not his proudest moments, but he’s far from being a social butterfly, and he came to terms with that a long time ago. 

As Maz turns back, the woman takes another deep, nasally inhale, as if scenting her. The woman’s head cocks. And then, a new terrible noise emits from her mouth -- a series of distinct screeches mixed with low guttural sounds. To her credit, Maz barely flinches, only looking slightly taken aback. 

The lingering dregs of adrenaline still in Ben’s system have made him jumpy, though. “What the hell was  _ that?”  _

“I’m not sure,” Maz replies, glancing at Ben again. “Nothing worth worrying about right now, though. Go check on your cat. And grab the girl some proper clothing while you’re at it.”

//////// 

With some hesitation, and only after Maz’s repeated insistence, Ben does as he’s told. After all, Maz  _ does  _ seem to have the situation under control, and Ben is still worried about the location and condition of his beloved pet. After a few minutes of extensive but rushed searching, Ben finally finds Ninny tucked into a corner of his bedroom closet. She seems very thoroughly pissed off at the invasion of a stranger into their home, but otherwise unharmed. Sensing that it’s probably better to just leave her be for now (and knowing that he’ll incur her claw-laden wrath if he makes any attempt to handle her), Ben moves to find something for the woman to wear. He wishes that he knew what to call her, wonders if she even has a name. Mentally referring to her only as  _ the woman _ feels strange and borderline tiresome already. 

He returns to the kitchen after a few more minutes and slowly approaches to hand off the clothing he’s picked out to Maz. The woman watches him with wary, uncertain eyes, but thankfully her inclination to attack seems to have been dispelled -- at least temporarily. Ben turns when Maz initiates her attempt to dress the feral woman. He’s not entirely sure  _ why  _ he does. He’s already seen every bit of the woman’s birthday suit by this point. It seems like the right thing to do, though. There are several moments of scuffling noises -- one quiet hiss, followed by a gentle “ _ Oh, hush,”  _ from Maz in reply -- and then the somewhat labored sound of what Ben assumes is Maz standing up. 

“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Maz remarks. Ben turns around. The woman is standing again, supported by her hand in Maz’s --  _ not just a lack of feeling threatened,  _ Ben thinks,  _ but already innate trust.  _ His clothes… well, they dwarf the woman, quite frankly, but they’ll do for now. The shirt he picked out for her, a spare long-sleeved tee he has from the Research Center, hangs off of her frame and exposes the tanned flesh of her collarbone and shoulder. Even in the cool, artificial lighting, Ben can see what he is almost certain are freckles dotted on her skin. The gray sweatpants are a pair that don’t even fit Ben -- merely a piece of university merch that he’d won in a contest and never thrown out due to sentimentality -- but still Maz has had to roll up the cuffs for her. She looks a bit ridiculous, but a small part of Ben’s brain thinks she might look a bit adorable, too, if he didn’t vaguely fear for his life around her. 

“Alright. That’s squared away then,” Maz starts, rubbing her wrinkled hands together at the successful completion of her task. “Now, if the cereal scattered across the floor is any indication, I’d think she’s feeling a bit hungry. What have you got?” the old woman asks, already moving towards Ben’s refrigerator. 

Ben shifts slightly, realizing he’s been watching the strange woman’s movements without even being aware of the action. He refocuses his attention towards Maz. “Um, a bit of everything, I guess. How are we supposed to know what she’ll want to eat, though?”

Maz seems to be two steps ahead of him in her thinking, though. She begins pulling random items out of Ben’s fridge -- a head of lettuce, a block of parmesan, some leftover takeout he’d gotten from a Greek restaurant the next town over -- and offering them, one at a time, for the woman to assess. The woman seems to understand what’s happening, or, at the very least, is motivated enough by her hunger to be interested in participating. She gingerly takes each item from Maz’s hands and gives it a sniff. Some of the foods elicit stronger reactions than others; she fully rears her head at the sight and smell of some speckled-brown bananas that Ben had been keeping in the fridge. Regardless, she rejects each and every one. It’s clear that she has zero interest in what Ben’s refrigerator has to offer. 

That is, until Maz passes along the fresh cod fillets that have been sitting on the bottom shelf -- courtesy of Ben’s fisherman father, Han. Then the woman shows a bit too  _ much  _ interest. Her demeanor shifts and her movements become frenzied as she tears away the simple paper wrappings; she then proceeds to sink her teeth into the flesh of the cod, as is.  _ Completely raw.  _

Ben moves to stop her. “Maybe you shouldn’t--”

“Just let her,” Maz interjects, waving off Ben with a flutter of her hand. He can only look on with mild horror as the stranger takes fervent bites of the fish. “If that’s what she wants, I’m sure she’ll be fine. After all, she doesn’t seem like she’s been living very…  _ civilized.  _ Maybe this is what she’s used to eating.”

Ben doesn’t like the idea of that. Maybe they’re in over their heads with this. He’s really starting to think he ought to call someone. Who, though? He has no idea what the appropriate services are to contact when you suspect that a woman who has entered your home may be legitimately  _ feral _ , a victim of neglect or mental illness or God only knows what. He voices these concerns aloud to Maz.

The old woman releases a deep exhale as she leans back to rest the weight of her body against the cabinetry and countertop. For a moment, she’s quiet; she appears to be deep in thought, rubbing absentmindedly at the knee that Ben knows she has bad arthritis in. “Do you really think that’s the best plan, Ben?” she finally sighs in reply. “The cops won’t help any. I’m sure all they can or will do is put her into a cell or an empty room for the night, until they figure out what to do with her. Same goes for taking her to an emergency room, if we could even get her there.”

They’re all very good points, unsurprisingly. Maz Kanata has a habit of making those. “I suppose you’re right,” Ben admits. “I can keep her here tonight, at least until the morning.”

And that seems to be the end of it. They are quiet for a long period, both Maz and Ben seemingly content with just observing the odd behaviors of the stranger in the house. The woman flits around between the open kitchen and living room. She only barely stumbles; it seems as if the more that she moves, the more graceful she becomes. Now, Ben observes that there is a certain litheness to her movement, in fact.

The inky darkness of night outside deepens. After some time, Maz announces her departure. Ben’s automatic response is to protest.

“I’m an old woman, Benjamin. I need my beauty rest,” Maz chides, moving towards the door as Ben follows behind her. “Besides, she doesn’t seem like she’s going anywhere. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Okay... I guess,” Ben responds begrudgingly, chewing on his bottom lip. “Thanks for coming over, Maz. I really appreciate it.”

The smaller woman smiles up at him, pausing in the doorway. “You’re more capable than you give yourself credit for, Ben Solo.”

Before Ben can reply, Maz has already closed the door behind her. The sincerity of her words settles in his stomach like a warm, tangible thing. He’s always considered himself a capable person -- at least in the most practical ways. Maybe he’s been missing something, though. 

His line of introspection is disrupted by the growl of his stomach. He turns to head into the kitchen, in search of food and to deter the wild woman from the aggressive way she’s currently handling some jars on the counter.

//////// 

“This is bread. Rye,” Ben explains, holding up the loaf in question. He knows he’s talking aimlessly at this point, but he finds himself doing it nonetheless. Now that Maz has left them alone again, he feels the need to fill the silence between him and the woman with…  _ something.  _ So that it doesn’t start to feel uncomfortable. Or maybe so that the woman doesn’t attack him. One of the two. 

“Rey,” a rough, feminine voice parrots from behind his shoulder. Ben turns on his feet. 

“Did you say something?” 

The woman looks up at him, inquisitive and wide-eyed, and furrows her brow in effort. “Say...something?” 

Her chapped lips move with unnecessary effort as she speaks, as though the very sensation of talking is foreign to her. There is a strange lilt to her voice, as if it’s composed of several accents — something distinctly British, a vaguely Scandinavian element to it, as well— and hasn’t been used in a long time. Or perhaps the raspiness of it is related to her continued labored breathing. Ben stares at the woman, briefly dumbfounded. 

“So you  _ can  _ talk. That’s good. How about a name? Do you have a name?”

Ben looks at the woman expectantly. She stares back up at him, blinking owlishly, taking in a few more raspy breaths. “Rey?”

“No, not the bread, your name,” Ben sighs. It’s becoming quite clear that the woman can’t be held to blame for her own lack of communication. That doesn’t change the fact that he can still feel a headache coming on anyway. “What people call you. My name is Ben. Now you tell me yours. Your name is…”

“Rey,” the woman finishes, insistent. “Name is Rey.”

Ben stares down at her for a moment. “You know what? That works for me,” he concedes. “At least for the time being, we’ll call you that. Rey.”

The decision upon a name seems to be of very little consequence to the woman --  _ Rey --  _ as she has already become occupied by the butterknife Ben holds aloft in his hand. She grasps to pry it out of his hold -- it’s dull, so Ben allows it -- and watches, mesmerized, as the steel catches the light, glinting. She takes an evaluatory sniff of the object and scrunches her nose, undoubtedly at the strong vinegar smell of the yellow mustard Ben had spread with it. He smiles a bit, despite himself. Whatever the circumstances are that have led her to be here, they’ve certainly molded her into an amusing creature to observe. Well -- mostly amusing, in addition to somewhat troubling and downright terrifying. 

Ben feels a bit more comfortable after that. There is a tenuous trust between him and Rey now, he thinks. He doesn’t even mind that she stays silent for the rest of the evening. He’s never really minded quietness, as long as it doesn’t have some kind of tangible discomfort laced into it. 

Eventually, Ben sets up the couch in the living room as a makeshift bed for Rey. He knows that the worn leather isn’t the  _ most  _ comfortable (it’s not terrible, though -- Ben has fallen asleep on it plenty of times himself) but he’s not sure if offering up his own bed is the right move. Mostly because he knows that Ninny is still holed up in the bedroom closet, likely plotting an act of double human demise. Better to not provoke the proverbial beast. 

“You can sleep here, if you’d like,” Ben offers, nodding in gesture towards the couch. He’s built up the base of it with several old quilts and pillows, with the softest blanket he owns on top. A peace offering, of sorts. 

His words appear to catch Rey’s attention. She steps away from the shelf of books and baubles she’d just been inspecting and rests her gilded eyes on Ben. She doesn’t make any movement towards the couch, though. Perhaps she doesn’t understand, Ben thinks. He decides to sit on the couch himself, patting the seat of it a respectable distance away from his own position. Rey cocks her head at him and he waits. Slowly, she makes her way over to the couch and sits down. Shifts a bit in her seat. Observes the position that Ben sits in and mirrors it, exactly, with her own body.

The innocuity of the gesture, coupled with the fact that this is the closest that she has willingly gotten to him thus far -- apart from their kitchen floor scuffle -- triggers another close-lipped smile from Ben. 

She seems to figure out what to do from there. She runs her fingertips over the surface of the blanket several times, then shifts to lay the upper half of her torso against the pillows Ben propped up against the arm of the couch. As she does, a dry cough bubbles out of her chest. It is a shallow sound, followed by more laborious, wheezing breaths. 

Ben’s brow furrows in concern, but he keeps his words light. Tries his best to sound comforting, although he knows he’s never been very good at doing that. “We’ll get some help for you tomorrow. Hopefully we can start figuring out what’s going on with you, and what’s making you sick.” He decides that he’ll try to call his mother in the morning. She is a physician, after all -- an exceedingly good one, too.  _ Dr. Leia Solo-Organa, the finest general practitioner in northern Washington _ , says an accolade that Ben knows she keeps hung up on a wall in her office. Hopefully she’ll be willing to make a house call, given the circumstances.

Rey sits up again as he speaks. Her gaze has an unshakeable intensity to it once again. Ben feels frozen by it; a deer in the headlights, terrified and entranced. For a moment, she is quiet still. But then, with a slight dip of her head, her lips open and a strange…  _ sound  _ comes out. A melody. A song, really. At first, the vocals sound human, but then they transition into something else entirely. The sound of it is beautiful, haunting, ethereal.  _ Inhuman.  _ It seems to fill the entire room, reverberating off the walls and furniture until there is only the swell and echo of the song. Ben swears he could feel it, almost. Wrapping itself around him like gossamer and sinking through his body, settling deep in his bones.

Ben has never heard  _ anything  _ like it. But, at the same time, something feels eerily familiar about the song. An echo deep in the recesses of his mind, a whisper like déjà-vu. He desperately wants to understand how he knows it, but the very sound of it seems to cloud his mind. His thoughts feel hazy, as if lost in a fog. But it’s not a bad thing -- far from, actually. The song fills Ben with a sense of peace so deep and profound that it feels foreign. In this moment, there is nothing but this strange woman in front of him and the power that she holds over him. Nothing but the unbreakable tether of her molten gold irises and the song that she is singing to him,  _ for  _ him. Ben could die in this moment and it would be a tranquil, comfortable thing. He feels certain of it. He could sleep for a thousand years and be happier for it.  _ Maybe I will,  _ he thinks distantly, as peace turns to drowsiness and his eyelids grow heavy. The world slips into darkness. There is only the very absence of thoughts, of dreams, and the glitter of a billion stars. 

//////// 

When Ben wakes the next morning, it’s at a dreadfully early time, driven by his body’s circadian rhythm. He can’t remember falling asleep, though, and this makes him feel disjointed. He presses the heels of his palms into his closed eyes and wills his memory to return to him. Within the pinprick of a second’s time, the events of the previous evening come crashing back into his mind. Everything is hazy when it comes to the end, though. There is a vague memory of something more than a song, of Rey, strange and wild, on the couch next to him… With a jolt, Ben’s eyes fly open. 

He is still on the couch. Rey is not. In fact, she isn’t  _ anywhere.  _ Ben stumbles through every room in his houseboat to confirm this, turning on light switches to cast off the dark of early morning and calling her given name. It’s a fruitless endeavor, though. The woman is gone from his house. Disappeared, in one way or another. 

Ben notices, with a sinking feeling, that the glass doors on the side of his house are open again. The curtains there sway gently in the breeze coming off the surface of the water outside. The sight of them is a mirror image to what he arrived home to the previous evening. Ben walks out through the opened doors and onto his small side patio. On the ground, the shirt and sweatpants he'd given Rey lie discarded. In his chest, there is the vague sensation of feeling lost. He has no idea why. He wishes he did. He finds that Maz is already out on her own patio just across the way, bundled up in a mauve housecoat to ward off the brisk chill of the early morning. 

His words sound faraway when he finally utters them.  _ What a strange strength of emotion to be feeling. _ “She’s gone, Maz. She just… disappeared.” 

Together, they look out onto the water. The surface of it reflects the pale, greyish light of dawn, a looking-glass into two worlds where a new day has begun. In the bay nearby, small fishing boats have begun to crawl their way out of the docks to capitalize on the fruits of morning. On the horizon are the shapes of larger vessels and trawlers returning to port. Ben wonders, distantly, if perhaps his father is among them. 

Enough time passes before Maz replies that, when she does, her words seem to break a hushed reverie that has stretched itself over the water. “For now, yes. Perhaps she has to. But I feel like she’ll be back.” She drapes her wizened hands over the railing, the tawny of her skin juxtaposed against the weathered, salt-drenched wood. “Is that what you hope for?”

This early in the day, it feels like all of Ben’s practicality and elaborate cognition have been stripped away. His mind, still half-asleep, feels incapable of stretching for anything beyond raw honesty. As he looks back out onto the water, he thinks of all the Ernest Hemingway that he read as a younger man, of an old man and his sea.  _ It is silly not to hope. Besides, I believe it is a sin. _

“I’m not sure,” he replies, and it’s the truth. “Maybe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my apologies for that very clumsy ernest hemingway reference. i saw the book on my shelf while i was writing and figured, why the heck not. a few notes: 1) fair warning - rey’s language development isn’t going to very realistic. it’s not really addressed much in the show, linguistics are not my strong suit, and tbh a realistic language learning process would probably take much longer than is necessary for a 'casual' fanfic. (like i haven't been putting hours of unnecessary research into this lmao). merfolk in the canon siren universe are hyper intelligent creatures, so let’s just chalk it up to that and ~ mermaid magic~. also, for those who do watch the show -- in this fic, the siren’s song does not function quite the same and definitely does not have the same effects as it does in the show. here is a link to what the siren song sounds like in the show for reference, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVVWbqDnuG8  
> thanks for reading y'all!


	3. and if you return to me, i'd never want for more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rey returns, and it's in a way ben could have never fathomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi ya'll! here's the third chapter, up fractionally sooner than the last update came. chapter title is from the song fear of the water by SYML. ALSO, i'm goofy and keep forgetting to include this, but the story title is from the song of the same name by laura marling. hope you enjoy the chapter! <3

Falling back into the water feels like coming home. More than that, though -- it is bonafide salvation. She knows that in her bones. The longer she had been out of the water, the more she felt pulled back to it. It was a deep, primal sensation, something that manifested in an increasingly physical way. By the time she had encountered the tall man, it had grown difficult to breathe in the land’s air. Her lungs had begun to burn again in the same way they had when she had first dragged herself onto the beach earlier in the day. She knew what would happen if she didn’t return to the sea, but she could sense the man wouldn’t let her go easily. After the small woman had left he was calm. _Much_ calmer than he had been. Still, though, he spiked with an emotion she recognized, but did not understand; a sort of unease directed towards her, but not because of her. Her body didn’t have time for his worry, though, and she’d grown desperate. 

She’d used her song on him. And it had been even more effective than she had expected. The large man drifted off into rest almost immediately. It was a good thing, too, because the pain in her body had become almost unbearable. All over it felt like she’d been laid out to dry in the sun. Desiccated and withered, cracked and exposed. She had stumbled towards an opening in the dwelling, the same one the large man had come in through, where she had seen the surface of the waves glinting outside. Her chest rasped as she struggled out of the things they had covered her body with, knowing they would only make the transformation even more difficult. By the time she was over the water, she hadn’t dove in so much as _collapsed_. For a few moments, it was bliss. Only the cool sensation of salt water surrounding her skin, soothing like a long-sought balm. But then the transition had begun and agony filled her body anew. 

Now, though, she was fine again. Comfortable in her natural state: two lower limbs fused back to the slick stretch of her tail, rhythmically beating against the currents that carried her. Because of her intent, she decides against returning to her colony. She doesn’t want them to stop her, to worry too much about her or even say cruel things to her to try and dissuade her. She _will_ return to land. 

It is not uncommon for her kind to go to the surface, to walk on land and blend in amongst those who dwell there. In fact, many in her colony do it when they reach her age. What is _not_ common, however, is to go many times. And she intends to do exactly that, no matter how painful the process is. As many times as it takes. After all, she has a purpose. There are ones important to her that she must find. 

And the man… perhaps he could help her. She had been taught since the earliest moments she could remember to _not_ trust land dwellers. That they were conniving, dangerous beasts, with ambitions too big and hearts too small. But she had seen the kindness in his eyes. She had felt it, too — radiating off of him, warm like the waters when the sun shone the longest. It was enough to make her want to bask in it just the same. He was strong too — capable. To her surprise, he had been able to defend himself against her. He had no malicious intent when he did it, though, even when he held the upper hand. And that seemed important. 

Even aside from all of that, there was something else that was _different_ about the man. It wasn’t something she could see, or even smell. It was deeper than that. Something she could sense only from pure instinct. She had gotten the same feeling -- although somehow even stronger -- from the tiny woman, too. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it had made it easier to be around them, somehow. Easier to trust them. 

He had asked her what she was called — her name. She didn’t have one, though. In the water, there was no use for names for individuals. You simply _knew_ others — their presence, their place in the colony, their significance to you. But on land, things apparently weren’t so simple. A name seemed necessary. His was Ben. It was a short, simple sound, one she had seared into her memory as soon as he uttered it. So she had repeated a sound back to him that he had said only moments before, one that sounded pleasant enough to her, and that was that. 

_Rey_. 

She doesn’t really know much about names, but already she likes hers very much. She wishes she could say it aloud again, feel the strangeness of the sound on her tongue. But beneath the waves, she could not use the language of the land dwellers. The sound of it would be immediately swallowed by the sea, turned into a thousand little bubbles that floated away. 

When she returns to land, she will say her name aloud as many times as she can, she decides. She will say Ben’s, too. 

She hasn’t yet seen many humans, but she is convinced there could be none finer than him. His body was shaped in a manner that resembled none of the males in her colony. And it wasn’t even the difference in their lower limbs that separated them. Her kind were strong beyond measure, sure — built to hunt and kill with zero error and little effort. But all of them were lean and sleek, better for movement through water. Strength in their sinew. Ben, however, had a frame shaped by the land. He was big and broad. A solid thing beneath and above her, something that wouldn’t easily slip away. 

Instinct had urged her to warn him away at every approach he made, regardless of the strange familiar pull she felt towards him, but now… Now she can’t help but drift into thoughts of the warmth of him. The way his weight against her had felt like the sun-warmed sands of shallow tides. Though his flesh was pale, life simmered beneath it in a way nothing in the water did. There was a wash of emotion and fierceness in him that felt so strong, so palpable when he was close to her, Rey was certain she might’ve tasted it. Perhaps if she had been a bit bolder, she could have reached out with her mouth; spared him the sharpness of her teeth but still tasted the salt and iron of him. 

She will return to land. She will return to him.

* * *

Two weeks pass by like the trickle of sand. Ben can’t shake thoughts of the woman called Rey from his head. She seems to follow him everywhere: a song like sleep in his waking thoughts, a ghost he expects to see in his house’s every room. He’d only known her for a single night, the span of a few hours, and yet she had still managed to press herself easily into the folds of his mind. Maybe it’s a testament to a loneliness he hadn’t previously realized. 

At first, it’s just her song. The memory of the sound fills his head and haunts him like a wraith. It’s so distracting that, for a few days, he’s rendered essentially useless at work. How can he focus on reports about ecological carrying capacity for sea otters in Southeast Alaska when his mind is filled with strange vocalizations and golden eyes and tanned skin covered by sand? After two and a half days of this, Rose finally barks at him to go home: _get some rest until you figure out what it is that’s distracting you and reducing you to a six-foot-something bump on a log._ The longer he thinks about the song, though, the more it seems to slip away. Like sand through his fingers, he finds it harder and harder to recall the exact sound of it, the familiarity of the rhythm. A part of him aches to hear it again. Hearing it again would mean seeing _her_ again, right?

He really needs to get his shit together.

  
  


Now that the song has faded, his mind feels a bit clearer. He’s curious, sure. And definitely concerned. As he should be, he thinks. After all, Rey had hardly seemed to be in the right condition for wandering on her own — and nude again, to boot, if his clothes that she’d left behind were any indication. But _pining_ for a near-feral woman he’d only just met? That’s where he draws the line. So he resolves himself to just try to move on with his life, as best as he can. He’s learned how to do that pretty well from therapy techniques over the years. He’d keep a close eye and ear on anything strange he heard about. And maybe, for the first few days, he finds himself sitting for extended periods on his porch, by the front window at work, in his Jeep at random places in town. Just… watching. He doesn’t know what for. Well, maybe he does, but he wasn’t going to admit it to himself. Because he is definitively _moving on_. 

It’s no matter, though, because he never sees anything. For two weeks, there is nothing of note, at least to Ben, that occurs in Kef Bir Cove. He’s able to focus on work again, and good thing too -- being late spring, that apparently means that it’s field trip time. And seemingly every K-12 class in the region has scheduled a field trip to the Research Center. Ben hasn’t been around so many children since he himself was stumbling through the awkwardness of youth. And it isn’t that Ben _dislikes_ children, necessarily. But having to suddenly juggle chaos-driven elementary schoolers and perpetually-hungry harbor seals is enough to make anyone briefly question their sanity -- and choice of career. It’s an adequate distraction. So is working with Ninny to finally break her of her little escapist habits (although Ben has a feeling that the jarring experience of a home intruder may have also contributed to the cat’s decreased desire to see the outside world). Overall, he’s good. He’s moving on.

But then there _is_ something. A singular something, one lone event that seems to somehow make everything else in Ben’s life — his _world_ — pale with the weak light of unimportance. 

////////

It’s a Friday evening when it happens. Ben finds himself working late at the Center once again. They’ve all fallen behind on research and paperwork due to the influx of field trip interest, and Ben is more than happy to pick up on some of the slack for everyone. No one had made plans for after work -- Finn had curled his lip at the very idea of choosing the local bar over the comfort of bed -- and Ben genuinely doesn’t even mind data entry _too_ much. It’s not his perfect idea of a Friday night, but it’s methodical, familiar, comforting. A mindless task he can easily lose himself into, and Ben doesn’t mind that one bit.

He’s startled and broken out of a chart analysis-induced reverie by the pitched woops and cries of the seals outside. So startled, in fact, that he spills a bit of the coffee out of the mug he’d been clutching. He’s infinitely grateful that the liquid is only lukewarm. 

Dabbing at the coffee in his lap, Ben glances at the monitor feeds for the two cameras positioned above and below the water of the Center’s main dock. It’s not unusual for the seals to be loud. Though significantly (and blessedly) less vocal than other pinnipeds, harbor seals still do a fair amount of communicating, and the ones at the Center are no exception. The degree of noisiness currently happening outside is a bit less usual, however. Ben can’t help but take it as a sign that something is amiss.

At first, the waters appear completely calm. _Too_ calm, actually -- all of the seals seem to have fled out of it, a strange thing. But then something darts across the lens of the underwater camera. It’s too quick to make out in great detail, especially in the darkened water, but it’s certainly not a seal -- the shape and coloring aren’t right. And Ben swears he sees the flash of hair. Long hair, too long and centralized for any animal, and deep brown. It seems familiar to Ben in a way that he wants to brush off, but the feeling settles deep in his gut instead. 

_It can’t be a human. It can’t be her. He’s losing his head._

Whatever it is, it seems to be what’s got the seals all worked up, which means Ben has to investigate it. He pushes up out of his chair -- careful not to spill his coffee any further -- and grabs an extra flashlight as he heads out the back door. 

////////

When he makes his way outside, there isn’t any immediate indication that something is amiss. Although the seals are definitely acting strange. They’ve all gathered at the end of the dock near him, filling the air with snorts and growls and sneezes -- threat sounds. Ben can’t see anything they’d be feeling threatened by, though. He bounces the beam of his flashlight aimlessly across the area around them in addition to the lights of the facility, finding nothing.

And then something breaks the surface of the water at the end of the dock Ben is standing on, hoisting itself up out of the ocean and onto the drenched wood. It’s not a seal, though. Ben is immediately certain of that. The bright lights hung up around give him a clear view of the creature against the darkness of the night. Whatever it is, Ben has never seen anything like it before — in any of his studies or field experiences. 

In the span of seconds, Ben absorbs as many details of the creature’s appearance as he can -- a scientist working on instinct, trained by the necessity of haste. The skin of the creature is a murky gray color tinged with turquoise. At the waist, skin transitions fully into scales the same shade, sea-slick and glistening in the harsh artificial lighting. By definition, it is undoubtedly a tail -- despite the _very_ mammalian upper torso of the creature, if the small swell of its breasts are any indication. A jagged, spiny dorsal fin extends down the length of it with matching pelvic fins on the sides. The peduncle flattens into a trident shape, two clear flukes with some kind of sharpened protrusion extending between them.

The creature thrashes violently. It takes in a sharp, deep gasp and then an ear-splitting, screeching cry of pain pierces the air. Ben jumps at the sound of it, and the seals start up their indignated symphony anew. Ben feels himself faced with a split second decision to make: to either attempt to help this thing, or not. It’s a dangerous situation; Ben is alone, he has no idea what this thing is, or what it’s capable of, or what it wants to do. But, at the same time, it’s presumably some kind of aquatic species that is very clearly in pain and distress. And this is what he _does._ It’s an instinct to help that’s driven from deep down inside of him. 

With nothing but the flashlight in his hand and the adrenaline in his heart, Ben rushes towards the creature. 

Fear, dread, and bewilderment fill Ben in equal measure as he gets close and crouches down. Because while the creature in front of him is undeniably alien, a strange and unknown thing, there is something unmistakably familiar about it, too. In its face, cast against the greyish-teal of its skin. Confirming the strange gut feeling he’d had at the sight of brown hair in the water. 

_Rey._

Before he has time to react to the realization, her webbed hand is reaching out to clutch his wrist. He notices the sharp claws where her fingernails ought to be a millisecond before he feels them pierce his skin. The pain is a sharp, visceral thing, bringing his mind acutely back into focus. Ben couldn’t tear his wrist away even if he tried ( _even if he wanted to)_. Rey’s grip is an inescapable vice even as she writhes in agony. He doesn’t understand why, though -- what could possibly be causing the terrible pain she seems to be experiencing?

Then, over Rey’s pants and gasps and shrieking cries, there is the unmistakable _snap_ of bone, the sickening tear of flesh. Before Ben’s eyes, the otherworldly-Rey in front of him begins to somehow transform. He feels frozen by shock and disbelief. Unable to do anything but watch as the impossible unfolds in a horrific way before him. As she thrashes back and forth, chest heaving, the spines of her dorsal and pelvic fins appear to descend back down into her body. The skin and sinew connecting her lower half begins to separate in a terribly visceral way. Swaths of her flesh, scarlet red against the grey of scales, fall onto the ground beneath her. Rey’s piercing grip leaves his arm as she braces herself against the dock, claws digging into the wood even as they dull into more-human nails. The silver-blue of the scales across her torso and face glint in the light as they’re shed and replaced by smooth, tanned skin. 

“ _Ben.”_ Rey’s voice is ragged but clear as she gasps out his name. For a brief moment, they lock eyes; the warm brown of his own trapped by the hazel-gold of hers. Her lungs struggle to force another breath. _In, out._ And then she collapses. 

  
  


////////

For a moment, Ben does nothing. He feels frozen by the shell-shocked state of his mind. A million questions and thoughts he never even considered _possible_ race through his mind. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, however, he’s able to gather himself rather quickly. Still, he can manage only to act on pure instinct. Without a second thought Ben scoops Rey into his arms. A mockery of a groom carrying his bride over the threshold of their soon-to-be-christened home. He might snort or even blush at the irony and implications of the gesture, if only it were happening at any other time. As it is, Ben’s eyes linger for a moment at the sight of Rey’s shed tail on the ground. Separated from her body, the color has become a deep and dull blue; the shape of it is nearly perfect, as if it hadn’t violently separated itself from her. An immaculate, impossible thing. He rushes away from it, back inside. 

The first thing Ben does when they’re inside of the Center is set Rey down on a cleared counter and check her over for any visible damage. He’s not even sure what he should be looking for, if anything. It seems the process she’d undergone was a self-sufficient thing, though, because the expanse of her naked body is almost entirely unmarred. Ben takes care to wipe the residual blood from Rey’s legs. There isn’t much -- she seems to have reabsorbed the majority of what wasn’t cleanly shed -- but Ben figures it’s the least he can do. He’s gentle as he does it, Rey’s eyes only mildly wary as she watches him. 

Thankfully Ben keeps some spare articles of clothing on hand at work, because he once again finds himself lending his own clothes to this woman. This time she at least seems more amenable to the dressing process. Though she seems exhausted and dazed, Rey stretches out her arms as Ben slips an old hoodie over her head. A quick learner. She even tries to shuffle her legs a bit to aid the process of Ben dressing her in a pair of terry cloth shorts. He has a bit of a hard time noticing, though. It’s almost as if now that he knows she isn’t injured or harmed in any way, Ben’s brain has allowed itself to become truly aware of the nakedness he’s helping her cover. He feels like a creep, honestly; but all he can focus on is trying to stymie the reddening of his ears at being so close to the bareness of her, _again._

And she stays close to him, even after she’s passably dressed. The night they had first met, Rey had quite literally attacked Ben for daring to come near her. A feral thing, vicious in her self-defense. He supposes he understands why, now -- she _is_ feral, a wild, impossible thing from the sea. Now, something seems to have changed. Ben isn’t sure if it’s burgeoning trust or simply exhaustion from the process she’s just gone through, though. As soon as Ben ties the waistband of the shorts, Rey teeters forward, eyelids fluttering as she rests her weight against Ben’s chest. His arms wrap around her instinctually. For a moment, he grits his teeth, expecting some kind of retaliation or recoil. None comes. Only Rey’s deep, uncertain-sounding breaths and her further sagging against him. 

Ben fights to squash the flare of warmth in his chest that he feels as she does it.

Right now, he’s got to think. What should he do? What _can_ he do? 

They’ve got to get out of here, for one thing. The seals are still going bonkers outside. Ben can only assume it’s from the mere presence of Rey -- another wild creature, another _predator_ , if her strength and the sharp fangs she’d had in her aquatic form were any indication. Whatever the cause, the seals’ loud, raucous barks and calls are making it hard to think. 

Ben shuffles them a short distance and gingerly lowers Rey down to sit on his desk chair. “Just stay here for a few minutes, okay? I’m not leaving. Just closing up for the night.” He’s still uncertain about how much of his speech Rey can understand. Nevertheless, she doesn’t seem intent upon moving anytime soon. She regards him with drooping eyes, golden irises dim with exhaustion in the overhead lighting, and sags further into the chair. 

Ben makes quick work of closing up for the night. He tosses the seals a few mackerel as a peace offering, which quiets them a bit, then makes sure to lock everything that needs locking. Double-checks that the morning crew has what they’ll need to make breakfast in the freezer. Grabs his coat and keys and tucks the remaining half of the Clif bar he’d been eating into one of his back pockets. When he finishes, he comes to stand in front of Rey again, hovering. Thinking. Or at least debating -- he knows what the easiest course of action is going to be here, hypothetically. It’s more a matter of whether or not Rey would agree with his reasoning. He decides to push his luck. After all, he’d already done it once, but she _had_ been unconscious then. But with everything that’s happened in the last hour, surely this wouldn’t be the strangest. Or most dangerous. So Ben crouches and wraps his arms under Rey’s lithe body, again pulling her up into a bridal carry.

By some miracle, Rey comes willingly. _Quite_ willingly, actually. She tucks herself into the warmth of his chest and nuzzles her face against his pectoral, and -- is she _smelling_ him? Ben doesn’t know what to make of that. He desperately wills his body to not react in _any_ way to it. Instead, he tries to focus on the task at hand. Wonders even more deeply _what_ has possibly changed in her attitude towards him between the first time they’d met and now. Two weeks of her being disappeared, and she comes back into his life like this, snarls replaced by tentative _nuzzling_.

Ben certainly isn’t complaining. He’s just a bit baffled, is all. 

He carries Rey out to his car, shifting to hold her in one arm as he jockeys to close and lock the front door of the Center. She only barely stirs when he sets her down into the passenger seat of his old Bronco. Ben is gentle as he fastens the seatbelt across her, handling her as if she’s some breakable thing when clearly she very much _isn’t._ He’d just seen her endure the unimaginable in testament to that. Still, he can’t help but regard her as a delicate thing when she’s like this. Exhaustion seems to have softened her, carved a small and sleepy thing out of the whirlwind of strength and teeth he knows her to be. Her long lashes cast shadows against her cheeks in the dim lighting. It makes Ben think of trips to Lake Crescent, of tufts of freshwater seaweed drifting in the water beneath a boat in the lengthening sun. He tries to not let himself linger on the sight of it for too long. 

Now, Ben has to decide where it is, exactly, that he’s driving. He doesn’t know where to go, honestly. The first choice that _should_ seem obvious is the hospital. After all, with what he’s just witnessed her go through, Ben still has no idea if Rey is in any pain or medical trouble or how to even _tell_ if she is. But so many things are decidedly not _right,_ currently, and the idea of taking Rey to a regular hospital seems like one of them. Ben knows he can’t help Rey alone, though. And he feels certain there’s only one person he can trust with this situation. One single person he can trust with almost anything, who he’d trusted with Rey before. Someone he knows will help them, and someone who he’s beginning to suspect knows more than she’s letting on. 

Maz. 

/////////

Ben drives the familiar route home. But when he pulls up to the houseboats, it’s Maz Kanata’s that he parks the Bronco in front of. Rey shifts in the seat beside him as he parks, eyelids fluttering in the sleep she’d drifted into on the drive over. He sits in the dark and quiet for a few minutes. Allows himself a moment to catch his breath, to fractionally process and re-package the events of the last hour. The things he’s seen have thrown his entire worldview, everything he’s ever been taught and believed in, into a complete tailspin. Courtesy of strange Rey. As dramatic in her return as she had been in their introduction; now, the sound of her steady breaths beside him serves as an anchor for his mind. She’s real. Everything that’s just happened is seemingly real.

Ben’s mind floats to the imagery that decorates his town, of the stories Maz told him as a child. Of a word his uncle had once uttered to him; the last thing he had said before Ben had stormed out of his uncle’s shop and life. 

_Mermaid_.

There is a building feeling in Ben’s stomach that feels caught somewhere between nausea and floating. Possibility and terror wrapped into one. He pushes it down with force. Runs his hands through the length of his raven hair a few times, an old self-soothing tic of his. He isn’t sure what truths lie in wait for him behind Maz’s door. But he figures he hasn’t got much of a choice other than to find out. So he rallies himself, creates a false sense of resolve to help push himself forward. 

He gets out and opens the passenger door to gather Rey up in his arms once again. The air has already grown significantly chilly with the creep of night; Ben is glad he had the hoodie laying around for Rey to wear. Once again, she doesn’t put up any fight or otherwise object to Ben’s cradling hold. Instead, she presses one of her small palms against his chest and shifts it around clumsily, as if seeking something out -- _his heart_. That’s where she settles her hand. Directly over the rhythmic beating of his own heart. Ben can feel it flutter beneath her touch. He takes a shaking breath and walks towards Maz’s front door. 

His neighbor opens up after only two doorbell rings. Ben clutches Rey somehow closer to him.

“Maz, I -- _we --_ need your help. And I think there are some things that you need to tell me, too.” 

Maz looks up at Ben’s face. She takes in the sight of him and the barely-conscious woman cradled in his arms, clumsily dressed in mismatched spare clothes. Her mouth presses into a thin line. “Yes, Ben. I suppose there are.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo i really hope it doesn't post the end notes from the first chapter here again i do NOT KNOW why it did that so. fingers crossed. ANYWAYS  
> i am so very much Not at all subtle with my hints and foreshadowing. also, i’ve been doing an unnecessary amount of research for this fic. i am now vaguely familiar with the basic anatomy of fish/aquatic mammals, pinniped (ie harbor seal) communication, and some of the native aquatic wildlife in the pacific northwest. the paper ben reads about otters is an actual thing that exists! the internet is a beautiful thing. i hope you all enjoyed. you have my eternal gratitude for continuing to read <3 <3


	4. before i learned civility, i used to scream ferociously

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ben learns yet another new truth -- part of it, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi y'all! i struggled a bit with writing this chapter and getting it to feel ~ right ~ while serving the purpose i intended it to. hopefully the end result is enjoyable. chapter title is from seven by taylor swift. shoutout to the bible study for helping me with this fic (dorime ameno) and to liz for being such a great cheerleader <3 thanks for reading!

“I told you she’d come back,” is the first thing Maz says after ushering Ben (and therefore Rey) inside. 

“Yes. The one thing you  _ did _ tell me,” Ben bites back. Part of him feels immediate guilt about the tinge of venom in his tone. After all, this is a woman who invested a significant amount of her own time raising him. A tiny woman that Ben knows has nothing but the purest of gold comprising her heart, despite all of her antics (and the salacious comments she often makes about Ben’s honorary uncle Chewie). Ben spent a large portion of his life being angry and yet it  _ still  _ never felt right when any of his malice ended up directed towards Maz Kanata. But if there’s ever been an excuse for it, it would be the current circumstances, Ben reasons. He’s functioning purely on residual adrenaline and shock at this point.

Maz is nevertheless quick to call him out on it. “So, Benjamin, you would’ve accepted it if I had informed you that the woman in your house was a  _ mermaid _ ?” Ben flinches at the word. He is very briefly overcome with the  _ very  _ childish urge to clap his hands over his ears and pretend like he can’t hear Maz, the same way he used to when his father would say something suggestive about his mother. He decides against it. After all, his hands are still currently occupied with holding the weight of a very sleepy Rey. Maz pushes on. “And how was I supposed to be certain, anyways?”

That question gives Ben some pause. He takes a moment to gently lay Rey down on the plush green loveseat in Maz’s living room. She goes without any fight, resting easily even amongst the myriad of piled-up pillows and quilted throws. After he’s confirmed Rey to be comfortable and not visibly plotting any escape, Ben turns back around to face Maz. “I don’t know, Maz. How did you even suspect it in the first place?”

It’s a brief thing, the way his neighbor’s expression shifts at his question; she’s quick to reconceal it, but Ben still catches it. “You could chalk it up to instinct, I suppose.”

Ben feels a flare of irritation once more at her response. There might be a little bit of hurt mixed up into it, too, if he’s honest with himself. “Maz, you have  _ never  _ lied to me. Why are you starting now?”

“I’m not lying to you, Ben. That  _ is  _ the truth, it was instinct.” The elder woman lowers herself into a chair --  _ her  _ chair, as Ben knows it to be, a well-worn but still comfortable recliner in the middle of the room. She won’t meet his eyes even as she answers his questions. “Perhaps… my instincts work a bit differently, though. Perhaps they’re tuned to sense more.”

In all the years he’s known her, Ben has never seen Maz look as old as she does in this moment. He knows she’s up there in her years -- how  _ far _ up there, no one is certain -- but he can truly see her age upon her now. It’s almost as if it’s a physical force weighing down on her; weariness writes itself in the wrinkles of her skin and the sigh she lets out sounds like an ancient thing, something that she’s been holding close in her chest for a very long time. The sight of it fills Ben with an uncertainty he didn’t anticipate. That feeling of uncertainty makes Ben feel small again, a mere child subject to the cruel whims of the universe. His heart beats too far up into his throat. 

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“I’m telling you that I could sense what your girl is because that’s what I am, too.”

  
  


////////

  
  


If brains can short-circuit, Ben is almost certain his has just done exactly that. He collapses himself into the one unclaimed seat in the room. In any other situation -- if that sentence had ended in  _ any  _ other way -- Ben probably would have replied to it in some fashion. Would have maybe sputtered in objection to the use of “ _ your girl”  _ as a descriptor for Rey. Would have at least informed Maz that she was speaking absolute nonsense because mermaids aren’t  _ real.  _ Rey isn’t one, and Maz most certainly isn’t one, either. However, with everything being what it is -- after everything that Ben has seen in only the last few hours and now been told by his very antiquated neighbor -- Ben stays utterly silent. 

Maz seems to sense that Ben’s silence will be a lengthy one. “I’m going to go put a kettle on,” she announces, pushing up out of her chair and toddling towards the kitchen. “I’m assuming she’s just undergone the shift, too. I’ve got something that will do just the trick to pep her up a bit.”

Ben hardly even processes her words, too caught up in his own thoughts. Mermaids are, for all intents and purposes,  _ real _ . Not just figments of the imagination woven into folk stories and fairy tales, or simply just the caricatured beings at the forefront of his hometown’s tourist appeal. And not just the center of an argument he’d had with his Uncle Luke, the memory of which he’d apparently done a good job repressing details from — despite it being  _ the  _ argument. The final combustible conversation they’d had before Ben had gone off to college and made good on the promise of cutting his uncle out of his life. 

No, no longer simply just any of those things. By some stroke of divine chaos, mermaids are real. The woman that Ben has been trying to  _ not  _ think about for weeks, who technically broke into his own home and attacked him, is a mermaid. Not only her, but his neighbor, too — a woman who helped  _ raise  _ him, who he considers more or less an aunt to him. Both of them... merpeople. Merfolk? Ben isn’t sure what the appropriate plural noun is. The entire concept seems so bizarrely juxtaposed to the sight of the two women as they are right now: Maz puttering around in the open-concept kitchen, Rey’s eyes drooping as she curls into the couch’s menagerie of quilted cushions and hand-stitched pillows. Both of them softly lit by the aged lighting fixtures that fill Maz’s home. They are entirely ordinary; pseudo-Rockwellian despite their circumstances. 

Ben is completely and utterly mystified. Somewhat astounded by the dullness of his own observational skills, too.  _ Some scientist I am,  _ he can’t help but think.  _ An entire marine species, almost identical to but completely unknown by mankind, right under my nose my whole life and I’m none the wiser until one decides to shift right in front of me.  _

Maz returns a few moments later carrying a cup filled with an ambiguous green sludge of some kind. It vaguely resembles the grimace-inducing smoothies that Ben used to drink when he was in undergrad and became tangled up in hipster health fads. She offers it to Rey with a gently murmured,  _ “Here, take this.”  _ When Rey only looks at the glass and then at Maz in confusion, the older woman begins making several gestures with her hands. The movements seem to hold meaning for Rey because she takes the cup and begins to drink the substance inside -- tentatively at first, but more eagerly after she seems to become accustomed to the taste. 

“It’s a mixture of sea herbs that help regain strength after the transformation, both ways,” Maz explains, answering Ben’s unasked question. She keeps a watchful eye on Rey as she speaks. “Luckily I had the right things on hand. It’s not a necessary treatment, but it certainly helps. The change is… rather taxing on our bodies.”

“I saw it. She came up out of the water right there at the Center. I watched her go through the whole process. It looked like it felt… unimaginable,” Ben confides, his voice gone quiet and soft. He suspects that Maz has already determined what occurred, though. Even in her old age, the woman has never been anything short of whip-smart, her abilities of precognition sometimes bordering on the side of eerie. Ben can’t help but wonder now if there  _ is  _ some element of the extraordinary at play in her awareness. 

“Has she got a name yet?” Maz asks, delicately steering the conversation back into more neutral territory. 

Before Ben can reply, Rey is piping up to answer for herself. “Name is Rey,” she informs the older woman in between sips of the sludge given to her. Maz smiles at the word. Ben assumes that’s a good sign, and wonders distantly how Maz came to have her own name.

They both watch in silence as Rey chugs the last dregs of the herb concoction. She finishes with a satisfied  _ smack  _ of her lips and wipes the pink of her mouth with the back of her hand. Instead of handing the cup back to Maz or setting it down, though, Rey simply releases it into freefall; the plastic of it bounces on the hardwood floor and rolls to a stop near Ben’s feet. Thankfully, the amusement on Maz’s faces indicates that she doesn’t mind Rey’s lackluster etiquette. Perhaps she was even expecting this result --  _ after all, she was like this once too, right?  _ Mermaid or not, Ben knows Maz has a bad back, and he instinctively moves to pick up the cup. It’s the first physical movement he’s made in minutes, and it seems to finish thawing him out of the shock-induced reverie he’s been in.

As he idly sets the cup on the table next to his seat, Ben musters the brain capacity to ask Maz a question. “The gesturing you did before -- that was some kind of communication, right? Sign language?”

“Yes, although it’s not exactly like the sign language you’re thinking of. Not as different from it as one might expect though, either. Our kind have several methods of communication.”

_ Their kind.  _ When will the foreignness of that concept start to fade? A dozen new questions flood Ben’s mind at this revelation; at the forefront, though, is a memory. “Like singing?”

His words seem to catch Maz off guard. Her brown eyes, beady without the exaggeration of her coke-bottle glasses, widen slightly in his direction. “Wh -- how do you know about that? Did she sing to you?”

Her tone unsettles Ben the slightest amount. “Yeah, the first night we met. It was after you left. I think it might be how she… got away from me.” He doesn’t quite like that wording because it makes him sound like she was his unwilling captive, but it’s all he’s got. He  _ hopes  _ that wasn’t how Rey felt; he would’ve let her walk out if she had really wanted to. He would’ve been just as worried sick about her wellbeing as he ended up being, sure, but that kind of thing was solely her own decision to make.

Maz doesn’t let him linger in his thoughts for long. “And you felt fine after?” Ben nods. He’d been distracted for a few days, yes, but he hadn’t felt  _ bad.  _ Maz hums a bit and rubs absently at her wrinkled chin. “Well… nothing to worry about then. Just a song.”

It’s almost glaringly obvious that she isn’t giving Ben the whole truth. He recognizes that now isn’t the right time to press, though, so he settles for another question. “Okay… the other forms of communication, then. Could you teach me? To help ease communication with her, at least.”

Maz smiles with fond amusement. “I can guarantee you that she’ll have a decent grasp on human English before I could successfully teach you even a few words in our language. And that’s not a knock on your own intelligence, either.”

Ben isn’t sure that he entirely understands. Maz doesn’t elaborate any further, though, so he again decides to press forwards with other questions. “So you can tell me more about what she… needs, right? What I can do to make her more comfortable? What the limits of this whole process are, too, I guess. So I can know what to expect. Some idea of how it works.” 

He feels desperate for details: something,  _ anything _ , that he can make some sense of and ground in his established reality. To make him feel like less of a passive witness to the radical metamorphosis of his own worldview. To maybe siphon off even a bit of the anxiety that fills him like lead in a balloon, pressing up against his lungs and heart and making his whole body feel like an unsprung trap. 

Maz laughs a bit, a sound like old bells tinkling. “There will never be anything about this phenomenon that you will be able to truly expect. Become comfortable with that idea now, Benny.” 

Before Ben can make any objection to that notion, the kettle on the kitchen stove announces that it has reached a boil, the whistling keen of it echoing through the house. Rey hisses at the sound, tensing up at an unseen threat. Maz and Ben reassure her in unison. The latter wonders distantly if either of them are more effective in doing so. 

“Listen, Ben,” Maz starts after going into the kitchen and returning once again. She hands Ben a steaming mug and keeps one of her own. “I know you have a lot of questions, but we’ll have plenty of time for those. How about we start with a little story for now? I’ll tell you the tale of how I came to live here.” 

Her words immediately transport Ben to days gone by, when his heart was softer and his eyes were wider. Sometimes Maz was the only one around to tuck him into bed. And though he had held this truth close to him, a quiet and guilt-laden secret, sometimes Ben was happier to have Maz beside him as he drifted asleep. She never read from books when she would give him a story for sleep. Her words were woven from the heart and they somehow seemed all the more  _ real _ for that: tales of soulmates separated across the stars and reunited through the determination of love, of scoundrels and knights sent on great adventures, of great heroes finding their way back home. There was magic in the bedtime stories she’d told him that soothed and captivated like no other.

Perhaps she had been preparing him for this inevitable plunge into his very own fairytale. Ben takes a generous sip from the mug Maz had handed him — some kind of hot tea, the taste of it faintly bitter and floral in his mouth. Then he nods for Maz to continue.

The personal history that Maz recounts is no less fantastical than any of the fiction she spun for Ben in his youth. Rey drifts off again in the middle of it. Ben wonders how much she understands of Maz’s story, and how much of it may be familiar to her. 

“This may come as a surprise, but it’s not uncommon for those of us like Rey and I to come to land. Not all choose to do it -- some acknowledge the fact that they could never be happier anywhere other than the sea -- but I was one of those who did. And I was absolutely awe-struck by all the things I experienced here. The sea was my home, of course, but it was all I had ever known. To me, once I came on land, it was as if all I could notice were the things the ocean lacked. They don’t have libraries in the water. Or diners, or parties, or freshly-baked croissants. The very first time when we come on land, though, we can’t stay for long. Our bodies have to adjust gradually; the more times we undergo the shift, the longer we can stay on land each period. And so I kept coming back. Despite all of the pain my body was wracked with, despite the sadness and confusion felt by those that I loved. To me, it was worth it.” In the dull golden light, Ben can see the way that Maz’s eyes glint with the bittersweetness of her own memories. “With each visit, I was able to stay longer. I had more time to learn and explore and fall more in love with this second world.”

“Eventually, I decided that land living suited me more and that I wanted to stay, and so I did. Our bodies allow for it. It’s not  _ only  _ magic and misunderstood things involved in that process. Just like anything else, there’s a lot of practicality and science, too. Our bodies allow us to adapt to life in two vastly different environments, but once you make the choice on one and stay there for a long time… it’s only natural for your body to adjust and follow suit. Permanently.” 

It’s a shorter tale than Ben expected -- spoiled by the epics Maz regaled him with as a child -- but the immensity of its significance makes his chest swell all the same. If it were anyone else telling him these things, Ben is almost certain he wouldn’t even begin to entertain the idea of their truth. But this is Maz. Knowing her true nature hasn’t changed the person that she is -- nor the attachment that Ben has to her. Maz is a fanciful person, eccentric and whimsical by nature, but she has never been a liar. The wash of emotions that play across her face as she shares her story are enough to convince him that her words are genuine.

Ben reaches for Maz without thinking and dwarves her hand in his own. A silent  _ thank you _ , the offering of an anchor for the fragility of her watery and reminiscent smile. They sit for a bit and sip their tea in silence: wrapped in the worlds of their individual heads but tied together like ships in a storm. The sound of Rey’s breaths, solid and steady in her sleep, fill the room.

Maz speaks again after a few minutes. “There’s more to this story when you’re ready for it, Ben,” she tells him this much aloud, but there’s a second half to her sentence that she doesn’t say:  _ You probably already know it, too.  _ It makes Ben want to shift uncomfortably in this too-small chair. Maz tightens the grip of her thumb where it rests against his palm. “It’s not my story to share, though. You’ll have to go to your mother or uncle for it when the time is right.” 

And Ben is grateful that she gives him that choice, to learn on his own time instead of forcing another impossible truth upon him. Because, quite honestly, he doesn’t think he’s in the right place to digest any more impossibilities at the moment. He’s had enough of that tonight to last him a good while. Ben is a curious person by nature; there’s a reason that he had pursued a career in science so single mindedly. But he’s also no stranger to the phrase “ _ curiosity killed the cat _ .” Sometimes the conscious choice to be blissfully unaware functions well as a tool for self-preservation. Unease has undeniably taken root inside of him, a simmering anxiety about the truth of his own place within all of this aside from the obvious. But it’s nothing he can’t ignore for now. 

Now that his mind and body have had the chance to calm down and catch up to one another, Ben starts to realize how truly  _ tired  _ he is. Exhaustion replaces the spaces in his body where adrenaline had just resided. He lets out a deep exhale.

“I suppose we’ll be going then -- unless Rey wants to stay here with you, of course.” Ben stumbles a bit through his words, feeling unsure. “Do you think that would be better? Should you like, ask her or something?”

Maz smirks at the young man before her -- endlessly amused by the way that the indifferent exterior he often tries to exude never fails to melt away in his moments of truth, exposing the gentleness of the heart inside. She gives his hand a good squeeze then lets it go. “I believe she’s perfectly content to stay with you. She didn’t just resurface at the Center, while you were there, on a fickle whim. You don’t need to worry so much, Ben. She’s not a helpless thing. Trust me, she’s more than capable of taking care of herself, even in this world that’s strange to her.”

And Ben  _ knows  _ that, he does. He’s already seen the evidence of Rey being a quick learner. He’s  _ very  _ familiar with her self-defense capabilities, too -- can vividly remember the sensation of her vicious strength used against him when he was still perceived as a threat to her. Can still feel the ghostly sharpness of her claws, agonized and desperate, in the places where his wrist still stings. He just feels a bit lost in the enormity and strangeness of it all. Blind but determined to get as close to doing the right thing as possible. Rey has gifted him with her trust; no matter how tentative it may prove to be, that feels like a precious thing. 

  
  


////////

  
  


This time when Ben wakes up, Rey is still there. 

In fact, she is very  _ much  _ there; leaning over the bed, her face less than a foot from his own. Far from where he’d left her last night. He had left the couch bedding relatively intact when he’d pushed it into a closet after she disappeared the first time. Initially, he had ignored the reasons he chose to do that -- unwilling to confront the fact that part of him was,  _ perhaps _ , very much wanting her to return and make use of the couch again. He had been incredibly grateful towards his past self for that choice, though, last night, on account of his own bone-deep exhaustion. It had only taken him mere minutes to get Rey situated and she hadn’t stirred the entire time. After that, he had collapsed into his own bed and been asleep seemingly in seconds. Had only bothered to kick off his shoes and entirely neglected to perform his nighttime routine or even change out of his work clothes. He slightly regrets that choice now, though, with a foul taste in his mouth and the seams of his khakis pressing into uncomfortable places. 

He can feel the warmth of Rey’s breath across his face when she speaks. “Ben.”

“Uh, hi, Rey. Good morning.”

Ben sits up slowly, his movements deliberate to decrease the likelihood of startling her. Rey shifts backward and straightens to her full height. Watching and waiting as Ben plants his feet onto the floor and presses the sleep from his eyes. The way she watches him is  _ intense  _ this early in the morning, so soon after Ben has woken up. Morning light filters in through the unclosed blinds and reflects in her irises, making them sparkle like freshly-polished topaz. It might be a bit ridiculous if Ben wasn’t so very enthralled by the sight of it. 

He stands up and begins to move away from his bed, and Rey moves with him. It seems as if now that she has her energy and wits about her, Rey has also regained some of her skepticism towards Ben, too. Her body language isn’t aggressive but it’s a far cry from the sleepy, pliant woman he handled last night. Now, her movements seem…  _ calculated.  _ Evaluatory. She’s lithe and graceful as she circles Ben, her sharp eyes upon him, roving all over him.

A predator sizing up a new challenger, deciding if he’s a worthy equal or merely prey. 

From the outside, Ben wonders if the two of them might look like they’re engaging in some sort of lost form of dance. He’s briefly struck by this act of pure animalism she’s drawn him into it. It’s the kind of thing he’d usually be tasked with observing. 

“Feeling more like yourself now that you’ve got some sleep, hm?” Ben jibes, careful to be conscientious of his own body language. Trying to make himself appear to be as little a threat as possible, despite the large discretion in their physical size.

Rey doesn’t say anything in reply; only offers a deep, pointed exhale from her nostrils and a clipped trilling sound that she seems to make in her throat. Then she turns on her heels and heads back out to the living room.

  
_ It’s going to be a strange weekend,  _ Ben thinks to himself as he follows closely behind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not a speck of horny in sight, just three characters living in the moment, substantially developing my plot for me (-: maz was much more of a quote-on-quote “crackhead” in my early versions of this story (i say that as if i have this story fully planned out and not just a vague outline lol). honestly the whole story had a much stronger crack vibe to it. but i have evidently transitioned into something much softer and (hopefully) genuine and maz reflects that.  
> i hope i’m not bogging this down too much with exposition and details -- i can’t help myself from delving some into the anthropological and biological aspects of merfolk, but i don’t want to detract from overall story quality with that either. if you have any feedback, let me know! and thank you as always for reading <3


	5. something's electric in your blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> several encounters occur, of vastly different natures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! uhhh i feel terrible that it has taken me THIS long to update. i hugely apologize to anyone who may be subscribed, life has just been crazy honestly? between school and personal issues i just couldn't find the creative energy to write this out properly. but, here it is finally lol. if you're still around, thank you so much i adore you genuinely. i have the framework for this story plotted out and my semester ends this week so HOPEFULLY i will have an update much sooner next time. title is from 'various storms and saints' by florence + the machine, which i listened to obsessively while writing this scene. enjoy! xx

Ben enters the kitchen to find an unexpected scene. His cat Ninny has apparently emerged from whatever hiding spot -- likely the loft -- she had holed up in last night at the return of the stranger in their home. Ben had made note of her scarcity the previous night and mulled over it a bit in the short period between his collapse into bed and when he’d fallen asleep. Ninny being unwelcoming to new people wasn’t necessarily out of the ordinary. The cat was never particularly warm to anyone unknown to her; she and Ben had that in common, and the likeness in their personalities was something that amused him quite a bit. Although Ben assumed Ninny could sense there was something significantly  _ different  _ about their guest, and that this was an added contribution to her averseness. (And that was something that Ben realized they didn’t have in common. Unlike Ninny,  _ he _ had already opened himself up to Rey with a swiftness he had never extended to anyone before. Ben wasn’t sure what to make of that particular revelation, though. So he had simply locked it away for later examination and allowed himself to drift into sleep.)

Now, though, Ninny is in the kitchen. Unfortunately, so is Rey. Ben takes in the sight, nay, the  _ spectacle _ before him: a showdown of Old West proportions between his cat and newly acquired mermaid acquaintance. Rey is frozen with her fingers in Ninny’s bowl of kitty kibble, undoubtedly lured in by the deceptively fishy scent of the food.  _ Not unlike a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar _ , Ben muses internally. It might be something that he would find endearing if it wasn’t Purina Cat Chow that she was attempting to plunder. 

Still, though, Ben can’t help the laughter that bubbles up out of his chest. It’s just -- this moment, this situation, his entire  _ life _ , recently, is so very absurd that it’s hard to not find humor in it. Rey’s wild eyes flash up at the sound of Ben’s outburst. In an instant, a blur of graceful movement, she is beside him. Quick to assess, ever-ready to adapt and learn to the strange ways of the new world she’s plunged herself into. Her head cocks as she regards him and reaches a tentative palm to the frame of his face. The whisper of her touch traces the place where Ben’s lips upturn, revealing the crookedness of his smile. For a moment, Ben forgets how to breathe. There is…  _ concern  _ etched into her sharp features, such a human emotion softening her otherworldly face into a much more familiar thing. 

“It’s okay,” Ben reassures her, his voice still warm with amusement but a bit breathless at Rey’s touch and her sudden proximity to him. He is careful to speak slowly and deliberately, enough to allow her to latch onto each and every one of his words, but not so much as to sound patronizing towards her. “I’m laughing. It’s a good thing. When humans expose our teeth, it’s a way to show that we’re happy.” Rey blinks owlishly at his explanation as she moves her hand back down to her side. Ben tries to ignore the twinge of mourning that he feels at the loss of it.

“And  _ this,”  _ he begins as he bends to pick Ninny up from the ground, “is Ninny. She’s a cat.”

“Cat,” Rey echoes, trying out the sound of the word on her own tongue. “She’s a cat.”

_ Her first full sentence,  _ Ben notes as he steels himself against Ninny’s weak objections to being picked up. Even though Rey was technically parroting his own words, he’s struck by the quick progression with vocabulary that she’s already displaying. 

“Yes, a cat. She lives here too. She’s important to me.” Ben tucks Ninny closer into his chest and strokes her ears in an attempt to demonstrate the meaning of his words. The feline relaxes slightly under his ministrations, her small black body almost fully engulfed by his hands. Taking this as encouragement, Ben reaches for one of Rey’s hands and gently wraps his own on top of it. Though her fingers are long and slender, calloused by God only knows what kinds of manual labor, Ben’s own hand still dwarfs her own. He guides her to gingerly touch the obsidian fur of the spot between Ninny’s shoulder blades. Surprisingly, both Rey  _ and  _ Ninny allow it. Ben moves Rey’s hand in a gentle petting motion a few times, then releases her. “See? Not so bad.”

Rey says nothing in reply, but continues to softly stroke Ninny’s fur with great interest. From how he’s holding her, Ben can feel Ninny’s tail flicking against his back. But she’s not fighting, or fussing, or blatantly trying to claw out either of their eyeballs, so Ben considers it a win. Ninny allows this exchange to go on for another minute before she begins to thrash her body wildly about Ben’s arms -- her way of politely demanding to be freed onto the ground. Ben obliges, and he and Rey both watch with waning interest as the cat scampers off into the direction of Ben’s room.

“Alright then. Food. Let me have some coffee and then I’ll get that sorted out.”

Ben flicks on his television as he starts up his Keurig machine, hoping that the piece of technology will be enough to occupy Rey for the time being. His plan works exceedingly well; the woman is immediately captivated by the array of sounds and pictures that move across the TV’s screen. In the span of a single commercial break, Ben has a travel mug full of coffee in one hand and his phone with Maz’s number already dialed in the other.

Maz picks up after the third ring. “Hello, Ben. Has something awful happened or am I merely being summoned for babysitting duty?”

“I’d hardly call it  _ babysitting,”  _ Ben huffs. “More like ‘wild sea being who’s capable of potentially killing me and definitely killing my poor cat’-sitting.”

“Has she tried to go after Ninny?”

“Not… recently. Actually, I think they’re on their way to being friends? Or at least allies. Still, I have my suspicions. Especially about what even lured Rey into the house in the first place.”

Maz makes a vaguely indignant squawking noise into the receiver. “Are you implying that Rey was intending to eat your cat?”

“Are you going to deny that Rey eating the cat isn’t at least a possibility?”

The old woman is silent for a beat before offering a begrudging answer. “Fair enough. In her --  _ our -- _ defense, though, it’s very hard to distinguish what is and isn’t an acceptable meal when you’re on land at first. Prey is prey. The concept of pets and domestication is strange.”

“You seem pretty domesticated,” Ben jibes as he watches Rey futilely track the movement of a person onscreen with the tips of her fingers.

“Watch yourself, Benjamin,” Maz warns him, but the threat doesn’t sound like it has much heat behind it. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

By the time Maz is ringing the doorbell and letting herself in, Ben has already changed clothes and brushed his teeth. He assures her that he’ll be back as quickly as possible, but Maz merely dismisses him with a wordless wave of her hand, already making her way towards his Keurig. Ben made sure to set out a cup of Maz’s preferred French roast for her. He can only hope that between that and the breakfast he intends to make when he gets back, he’ll have sufficient enough compensation for imposing upon the woman at such an early hour.

**/////////**

The morning sky awaiting Ben outside is gray and heavy with the promise of rain. During the summer months in Kef Bir, the relentless misty drizzle that fills the other seasons of the year tends to let up, lending to a comfortable and moderate climate that draws in tourists from all over. Still, a good downpour every once in a while isn’t uncommon this time of year, and today seems to be the day for it. Fat drops of rain begin to plummet from the sky as Ben starts up the Bronco and pulls out onto the main road. The world beyond the windshield is quickly reduced to a kaleidoscope of grays and greens. Ben flicks his windshield wipers into action as he heads towards the downtown harbor, to the only place he knows will be selling fresh seafood this early in the day. Well. The only place  _ he’s  _ willing to go to.

Despite Kef Bir Cove’s undeniable status as a fishing town, nowadays there was only one remaining non-corporate shopfront that still functioned wholly as a seafood market. This sole establishment -- a family-owned shop named after its patriarch, Ackbar -- was Ben’s presently intended destination. All the rest of the town’s markets had been squashed out by the dominating spread of First Order Fisheries. And although First Order was  _ technically  _ a local business (corporation, rather), Ben found that he would rather gnaw off his own right arm than patronize that company in any way. It wasn’t just First Order’s unethical, inconsiderate business tactics -- quashing out almost all of its rivals through blackmailing and bullying, and eliminating the independence of nearly half of the local economy in the process -- that drove Ben away. He had a personal contempt for the company’s owner as well. Murray Snoke’s unsavory demeanor was something that extended far beyond the scarred visage of his exterior. Snoke was a brutal and conniving man with little regard for any other living being, beyond what was necessary for him to feign in the name of manipulation. It was no secret that the owner of First Order Fisheries had business strategies that often toed the line between ethically unpalatable and blatantly illegal. There wasn’t much that could be done about it, though. The unprecedented extent of Snoke’s influence ensured that. Snoke was a man singularly motivated by his desire to expand his business and his power at any cost. Ben had experienced the unnerving extent of that determination firsthand. Years ago, when Ben was on the cusp of high school graduation, Snoke had pursued him with the intent of taking Ben on as an apprentice of sorts. It hadn’t mattered how desperate Ben was to get out in the world and begin carving a name for himself, though. Even then he had known that the grueling environment of a business career was not the path for him.  _ Especially  _ a business career led from beneath the cruel thumb of Murray Snoke. To say that the old man had not taken well to Ben’s rejection of his offers felt like an understatement even now. This animosity had only added further fuel to the fire of young Ben’s determination to distance himself from Kef Bir Cove. Nowadays, he hadn’t seen Snoke’s ghoulish face -- twisted with age and extensive scarring, but made truly ugly by the wickedness within him -- in years. He was content with maintaining that streak for as long as possible.

Ben is pulled from the depths of his thoughts as he turns into the small, worn parking lot for Ackbar’s. The market is a modest but well-maintained establishment, situated directly on the neck where the harbor transitioned into the main strip of downtown. The fact that it still remained amongst the pervasive presence of the First Order served as a testament to how determined -- and beloved by the rest of the town -- that the Ackbar family was. 

The son of the family, Aftab, greets Ben as the latter exits his car and pulls up the hood of his jacket against the rain. Ben and Aftab had gone to school together, and though they were never very close, they had found commonalities in their father’s careers. They were both quiet and reserved, and Ben thinks that produced a sense of camaraderie between the two of them growing up as well. Aftab appears to be receiving a delivery from the haggard-looking fisherman standing astride him. By the time Ben is returning the greeting and making a dash for cover beneath the building’s awning, the younger Ackbar is already distracted again by his business conversation. 

“Young Solo!” The gruff, booming voice of Gial Ackbar drowns out the sound of the shop’s bell in welcome as Ben steps inside. “What brings you here, and at this hour?”

Ben sidles up to the counter and peers groggily into the display cases. “Unforeseen circumstances. I’m in need of seafood and I know you keep the freshest stuff in town.”

“That’s true, that’s true,” Ackbar concedes, and Ben doesn’t miss the way that the older man’s chest puffs out a bit in pride. “I think your father might have my hide if he finds out that you’ve been buying your fish from me, though!”

“I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine, Admiral.”

“Hm. Sounds like a trap to me,” Ackbar replies, scratching at his drooping chin as if he’s having to seriously ponder the proposal. “But what kind of businessman would I be to turn away a paying customer! What can I get for you?”

As Ben fires off his list of requests, the puzzled look on Ackbar’s face grows. The old man’s prominent brow furrows deeper and deeper to a degree that’s nearly amusing as he wraps up the growing pile of Ben’s selections. All in all, Ben ends up with nearly six pounds of seafood -- a menagerie of shellfish, cod, flounder, halibut, tuna, and shrimp. 

“I’ll have to hope you’ll find your way into my shop more often if you maintain an appetite like this, lad,” Ackbar remarks as he rings up Ben’s purchases. 

Despite the breadth of his haul, Ben still isn’t  _ entirely  _ confident that it will be enough to sustain Rey for very long. But, he supposes it will have to do for now. If he times everything carefully, he might be able to get something from his father’s next catch, which would come at the appealingly low price of  _ free.  _ Ben would be willing to spend every cent of his checking account at Ackbar’s, though, if that’s what it takes to avoid the possibility of an uncomfortable encounter between his fisherman father and the half-fish woman that’s taken up residence in his home. Sure, the relationship between he and his father has been on the mend for a while. But Ben isn’t entirely sure that it’s grown strong enough to nullify whatever conflict of interests would undoubtedly arise from that particular situation.

Whatever. He’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

Ben bids farewell to old Ackbar and makes his way back home through the dreary weather. The whole errand feels deceptively normal considering the nature and purpose of it. Domestic, even. Ben has enough humility to laugh inwardly at that thought as he drives, idly drumming his fingers along to the staticky tempo of some indie song on the radio. 

////////

The permeating stench of seafood that will undoubtedly linger in Ben’s car for days is worth the eager expression on Rey’s face when she takes in his haul. Maz is equally pleased with Ben’s offer of breakfast. Ben is careful to make what he knows is her favorite -- 

The rest of the morning passes in relative normalcy. As much normalcy can be achieved between an introverted marine biologist and his newfound mermaid housemate, that is. After Maz departs, and lacking in anything else better to do, Ben begins to rattle off the names and purposes of random objects around the house. Rey latches onto this activity with unprecedented enthusiasm, to Ben’s mild surprise. Soon enough  _ she  _ is the one leading him from room to room, clutching on to nearly every item she can find and thrusting it towards Ben with an expectant expression. By the time they’ve catalogued nearly everything in the house and Rey’s interest has begun to wane, the rain outside is tapering off.

Now on his third cup of coffee -- which, against his better judgement, he allows Rey to try (and promptly spit out) a sip of -- Ben is feeling a bit restless. He isn’t unaccustomed to spending a day indoors. That’s a rather standard activity for him, in fact. It’s more that he isn’t used to  _ sharing  _ his home, feeling like he has to somehow play host and entertain another person for an extended period. Ben is aware that, in this situation, such feelings are entirely absurd; after all, Rey seems perfectly entertained by the very notion of being in a home. Now that Ben has provided her with the lexicon, Rey seems committed to memorizing the shape and name of every object surrounding her. And isn’t like she has any concept of human hospitality. Ben highly doubts that there is any mermaid equivalent of housewarming parties, and if there is some standard of general manners in her culture, it seems to be vastly different from the one he was taught from. Still, something about the scenario is throwing Ben off-kilter and making him itch for the normalcy of some institution of routine. Following this thread of thought, Ben suddenly realizes how desperately in need of a shower he is. Though he had changed clothes this morning, he still has all the grime of work yesterday on him, and briny residue can only be allowed to set for so long before it becomes  _ noticeable.  _ Certainly he’ll be fine to leave Rey mostly unattended for the length of a quick wash. 

Things do not go according to plan. Not even remotely.

Perhaps it’s Ben’s fault for leaving the bathroom door open. The thing is, he didn’t really think twice about it being a problem. And he’d  _ really  _ needed a shower. So he’d flicked the television on again, confident that would occupy Rey’s attention for some time, and headed into the bathroom. Left the door unlocked and slightly cracked so he could hear better, just in case. 

To Rey’s credit, it takes her quite a while to wander her way towards the bathroom. Ben is on the final steps of his shower routine, rinsing off the suds of his body wash and lather of his conditioner, when he hears the slight  _ creak  _ of the door. The shadow of a form moves just on the other side of the pale blue shower curtain.

“Rey?” Ben’s voice is a croak of uncertainty, a sound only moments away from mild panic. 

“Ben?” Small, tan hands struggle against the edge of the curtain for a moment. Ben feels his heart quicken like a pursued rabbit and rise into his throat.

“Rey, no --” he tries, but it’s too late. Rey pushes her way past the fabric and plastic creating a barrier between them, and then she’s there. In the shower. With Ben. Who is, expectedly, drenched and entirely nude. 

_ Oh, how the tables have turned. _

Rey takes in her new surroundings with curious eyes. Ben makes a feeble attempt to cover himself; his brain feels like it’s stuck in error mode, caught in too much of an internal stumble to successfully produce any verbal communication. 

“Water,” Rey says, the sound of it wavering somewhere between statement and question. One of her hands reaches out to touch the shower’s spray. Droplets of water ricochet to dampen the sleeves of his hoodie, the one she’s still wearing from last night. She looks Ben up and down critically -- his ears feel like they’ve caught  _ fire --  _ and seems to reach some evaluatory realization. Before Ben can even process what she’s doing and make some attempt to  _ stop  _ her, Rey is shucking off her borrowed clothes. Mirroring him. That’s how she learns, after all. The hoodie and shorts settle with a damp  _ smack  _ on the floor outside of the shower where Rey discards them. A futile grunt of protest, the only sound he feels capable of producing, gets stuck in Ben’s throat. She stands in front of him entirely bared once again, a stretch of endless tanned and creamy skin stark against the deep brunette of her hair -- and the matching thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs. 

Ben is grateful for the stream of water against his back because he feels certain that he’s at high risk for spontaneous combustion. He can feel the way that his blush spreads across his cheeks and outwards to consume his ears, too, where they stick out awkwardly from his water-flattened hair. If he doesn’t die by fire then perhaps a heart attack will take him.  _ Surely _ his heart can’t sustain this hammering rhythm it’s stuck in, beating like an orchestral drum inside the cavity of his chest.

Rey pushes her way towards the shower’s spray, unabashed and curious, barely paying Ben any mind. She is quite literally the only thing that Ben can focus on, though, his mind narrowing only to thoughts of  _ Rey, Rey, Rey _ . He presses himself against the side of the shower, trying his best to deftly avoid contact with the woman. Cursing the largeness of his own frame. The space is too small, suddenly, shared between them and filled by the radiance of her. He feels like a big, bumbling oaf, caught unaware and trapped by this wisp of a woman. 

And God, it’s  _ ridiculous  _ how beautiful she is, ethereal even like this -- standing beneath the spray of his shower as he actively tries to dissolve into the wall of it. In the dull ordinarity of their settings, the true mythos of her seems somehow more sharply distinct. Here and now, she seems like a vision of a dream. Like she’s just stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece. Her chestnut hair plasters against her skin in waves, down her shoulders and back and following the curves of her breasts (which Ben is trying very actively to  _ not  _ look at). Water catches on her lashes like morning dew as she turns up her palms and revels in the discovery of this strange water source. Vaguely familiar to her, enough to perhaps make something ache inside, but entirely new, too.

Ben practically  _ pleads  _ with his body to not get hard, to somehow not react to a beautiful naked woman being in such close proximity to him, equally naked, in a shower. He desperately conjures thoughts of unsexy things: things like Excel documents and fish guts and Republican senators that have far surpassed their expiration date. 

It doesn’t work. 

And, well. It’s not as if he can hide  _ that  _ easily. He makes a quick maneuver, trying not to fall on his ass across the slippery bathtub floor, and practically flings himself out of the shower. Rey follows his jerking movement with watchful eyes -- intrigued, but not enough to warrant her pulling away from the soothing stream of warmth rushing over her. Ben makes a mad grab for the deep blue of one of his bath towels as he settles on his feet, wrapping it around his lower half and trying to ignore his sensitivity to the feeling of it. 

“Usually -- people usually don’t do that,” Ben huffs out, the first full sentence he manages, knowing Rey won’t even truly understand it. At least he  _ thinks  _ she won’t. The look in her eyes at that moment gives him some pause, though. He can’t really quite put his finger on what it is -- a little bit like mirth and humor, and something almost like  _ hunger,  _ too, if Ben didn’t know any better. Softened beneath the shower’s cascade but unquestionably there. Enough to make him wonder if maybe she’s aware of more than she’s letting on. 

Ben swallows and turns. Pulls the towel tighter around his hips, pressing down against the erection that he’s trying very hard to ignore. It’s a small blessing that his reflection is marred by the fog across the mirror so that he doesn’t have to be faced with the undeniable truth of his condition. He braces himself against the bathroom counter. Takes several deep breaths -- counting in measure as he pulls each one in, holds it for a beat, then releases it once again. Centering himself and collecting his thoughts. Willing his body to  _ calm the fuck down.  _

It works a little. Enough to make some of the blood in his body travel north again and make him feel like he has some degree of his wits about him once more. He slips into the pair of soft pants he’d set out and towels his hair to the point where it’s at least no longer dripping. Then he reaches to grab another fluffy towel from the shelf, bracing himself with a sigh as he turns to face his shower intruder.

“Come on, Rey. Fun’s over. Time to get out,” Ben urges, making gestures with his body to clearly indicate what he means. Rey doesn’t budge towards him. Instead, she sinks her body to sit on the floor of the tub, her expression impassive but resolute. Her eyes are locked with his, almost…  _ defiant. _ Ben feels the faintest flicker of something resembling irritation deep inside of him. But it isn’t substantial, barely even a true thing before it blinks out as quickly as it came. Merely the residue of old habits dying hard, a bad temper in youth that left lingering scars. The mere budding of it, no matter how minute and unsubstantiated, still gnaws a bit at Ben though. It’s not like Rey knows any better, right? Of course she’s intrigued by this discovery, the stuff of her home, her very  _ essence _ , presenting itself in an entirely new way. 

There is something about her that is so captivating to him, unlike anything he’s ever experienced before. Every moment he spends around her fills him with a dozen more questions that he never asks. He’s not sure if he’s saving them for a time when she can understand them fully, and respond in turn, or if perhaps he may never ask them aloud at all.  _ She’s lived in water her whole life,  _ he thinks,  _ but has she ever experienced it like this? _ The stream from the shower is still almost blisteringly hot — just the way Ben prefers it, another of the few indulgences he allows himself. Nothing like the relentless cold of the Pacific that she’s undoubtedly used to. Although… it’s hard to believe she could achieve the tan of her skin living only in their local waters. Maybe she swims somewhere else, too: somewhere farther south, with warmer waves and sunnier skies. The academic in his brain is quick to remind him that she is technically classifiable as a marine mammal, and the majority of marine mammals migrate. Each year is spent cycling through oceanic zones, traveling along the invisible routes that they intrinsically know. Colder waters to feed, warmer waters to… mate.  _ Breed.  _ Ben pointedly skips over that mental line of inquiry. 

A new moment’s influx of questions:  _ How far away do you swim? What distances has that strange, ephemeral tail taken you? Are these waters the only home you’ve ever known? _

And she hasn’t… shifted, either. He only now properly realizes this. But why hasn’t she? Perhaps because she is not fully submerged. Or maybe it’s the lack of salt in this water, being that it’s sourced from some freshwater river in the next county over and treated to hell. So many questions, and yet no way to properly ask them.  _ Not yet, at least.  _

Ben would like to study her at some point, he thinks errantly. But only if she’ll allow it. For now he tucks the largest of his inquiries away in his mind, saving them in hopes that Maz may be willing to provide some answers. 

Ben sighs again. He doesn’t think he ever sighed this much in his entire life before Rey came into it. Not that it’s a tradeoff he’s unwilling to make. He watches Rey for a few minutes. Lets himself get wrapped up into the presence of her once again, although he knows it’s a dangerous thing. And it  _ is  _ \-- like a teetering knife, waiting to plunge its blade into him as soon as he’s caught off guard. And it is so very, very easy to be caught off guard around her. 

He isn’t sure what makes him do it. One minute he’s standing with crossed arms, a poor attempt to lock himself away, watching Rey as she spreads her fingers in the pooling water in the bottom of the tub. But then she glances up at him and again there is a  _ look  _ in her eyes, a different one he doesn’t at all understand. The effect it has is plain, though. Ben is a man damned. Utterly helpless to the pull she has over him -- the moon beckoning over his tides, a polar magnet urging him closer and closer. Luring him in towards her atmosphere of salt and gold and chocolate-colored hair. 

And there is this…  _ tension  _ between them, surrounding them and filling the entire room the same as the steam. Like the energy that makes itself tangible in the atmosphere right before a thunderstorm, waiting to be released in lightning bursts. A heady and corporeal thing thick enough to be cut through with a knife. Buzzing, simmering. Waiting to be released. 

Ben is kneeling on the floor at the outer edge of the tub -- a devotee eager to worship at Rey’s altar. He doesn’t even remember lowering himself onto the floor. That realization is enough to cut through his mind’s reverie, shake him out of this spell shared between them. 

The deep and rasping sound of his own voice when he speaks catches Ben by surprise. “Time to get out, Rey.”

This time, she comes willingly. 

////////

After the strangeness of the shower...  _ incident _ , the rest of the weekend passes by in a manner that is comparatively uneventful. Sunday is spent on further learning -- this time, though, it is mutual. Rey is seemingly relentless in her pursuit of newfound knowledge. The only time that she isn’t pressing Ben for vocabulary and explanations is when she’s devouring every ounce of seafood in Ben’s home. She even dares to sample the anchovies that Ben finds hidden deep in the recesses of his cabinetry -- either a relic from the previous renter, or a memento leftover from Maz’s cooking. Regardless, Rey is overwhelmingly  _ not  _ a fan. Ben is left cleaning up the remnants of the tin, chucked clear across the kitchen, as evidence of that opinion. 

On Monday morning, Ben is awoken by the sound of Rey’s dry cough before the sun has even begun to rise. She lies curled at the foot of his bed -- a strange position, given the comfortable nest he’d made for her on the couch, but not one he had been willing to contest the previous evening. Her wheezing rasps echo painfully in the small space of Ben’s bedroom. 

Fortunately, it’s still early enough in the day that Ben feels confident that she won’t be seen. After all, the only people that live in the little floating community other than him and Maz are Celio and Artie, an older couple. And they won’t even be awake for another three hours, at least. 

Through a bit of simplified verbal communication and some very haphazard pantomiming, Ben is able to communicate his suggestion to Rey. When she nods her head towards him as an affirmative, Ben feels momentarily awed by her rapid accumulation of knowledge. It’s a small gesture, practically instinctual, and one that almost any human wouldn’t even think twice about. But coming from a being that’s only spent a little over three days total amongst human beings, it feels rather monumental. Maybe this is what it will always be like, Ben ponders. Perhaps he will always feel amazed and mystified in her presence. For however long he is lucky enough to be around her. 

He tries to not linger on that particular thought for too long. At least not right now.

Rey undresses quickly, entirely unabashed in her nakedness as always. Ben looks away, over across the water, trying his best not to think about the shower incident while his ears burn traitorously. His attention is brought back when Rey unexpectedly places a firm palm on his chest. 

“Will come back,” she says to him, making a point to capture his gaze. A phrase that she must have picked up from his casual promises over the weekend, but it seems so much more significant coming from her. 

Ben wants to place his own palm over hers where it rests upon him, barely spreading over even a third of his chest. His hand  _ itches  _ for the movement. But he has to be slow about things, he has to be patient, he has to be  _ careful _ \-- whether out of concern for Rey’s sake or his own, he isn’t quite sure. So he doesn’t do it. Instead, he offers her only a dumb nod in reply. 

Rey moves her hand off of him and shifts to stand at the edge. Her eyes move rapidly over the stretch of water in front for a moment, as if calculating. Then, with a single, graceful movement, she dives in, disappearing beneath the steel blue surface of the ocean with ease.

Ben tries in vain to track her movements, peering intently into the unyielding depths of the water beneath him. For a few moments there is nothing beyond the echoing ripples across the surface. He feels the ever-unwelcome creep of anxiety as he watches a flurry of bubbles reach the surface, the only evidence of movement below. Ben knows this transformation is a natural process for Rey, but he had watched how painful it was for her on land. Surely it went both ways. The idea of her having to endure that agony once again makes his chest feel tight. Then her tail breaches the surface a few yards away, gleaming like the trident of Poseidon himself in the pale light of dawn. It disappears once again with such an echoing  _ slap  _ that Ben is certain it’s intentional; Rey’s way of saying  _ Hello! Here I am! _ He relaxes at the gesture, somewhat amused by the seeming playfulness of it. Rey is fine and so is he. Everything is fine. Ben repeats these words in his mind like a mantra until his breathing slows down to match the tranquility of the dawn. 

“Ben?!” a familiar voice yells sharply, piercing through the gentleness of the morning’s air. 

Fear travels up Ben’s spine like lightning.  _ Stupid, so stupid to send her off in such plain sight,  _ his brain trills, working a mile a minute as his body pivots to see the identity of the sudden intruder. 

The petite figure of Rose Tico looms a few yards away. Ben isn’t really sure who he was expecting it to be, but it certainly wasn’t her. Frankly he has no idea why she’s here. He’s not even sure how Rose knows where he lives. Their marina community is tucked away enough from the main stretch of town that people don’t just happen upon it on their way elsewhere. And why did she have to be here  _ now _ , of all times?

Rose moves closer to him. Ben notices now the way that her breathing is labored, the athletic clothing she’s donning and the phone strapped to her bicep. More prominent, though, is the way that her eyes have gone wide and her brow is furrowed with bewilderment. 

“What the  _ hell _ did I just see?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..... they are horny, your honor


End file.
